Restart
by great-growlithe-gamer
Summary: The game's been reset and Vanellope has forgiven all of the racers..hasn't she? And the racers regret their actions..don't they? Neither side knows how to feel. Forgiveness isn't the same thing as friendship. When Rancis wants to clear the air between the racers and president alike, he tries to bury the hatchet and make nice with everyone..but he didn't count on it being so hard.
1. New Game

Sitting alone in a big, empty castle wasn't really how Vanellope imagined she'd be spending her typical Saturday night after the restoration of her game, but that's exactly what she found herself doing, twice in a row now.

The game had been reset for almost three weeks. Ralph was sometimes busy, and he couldn't make it to her game to see her on Saturdays because that's when he had a guy's night with Felix and occasionally a few other characters now that he was more accepted. He was also helping with the construction of more apartments in Niceland for the homeless characters, and thus couldn't visit several other days of the week.

Vanellope thought it was great and all, but she really wished that he could spend just a bit more time with her, because, she didn't really have any other good friends. That was why she was sitting in the castle alone three or four days a week.

She could go see some of the racers, so easily…

She stared at the door of her minty-green room for a while.

Maybe she should just go out and try to be social with the racers. What's the worst thing that could happen? A 'no thanks'? Awkward silences? Inside jokes she didn't understand? Them telling her that they still hated her for no reason?

'_Okay, maybe THAT one wouldn't happen. Now I'm just being unreasonable__.__'_ She scolded herself mentally for the last thought.

She glanced at the door one last time.

She could…but, no.

Vanellope proceeded to stay in her room and entertain herself by drawing pictures of whatever came to mind. She'd get around to talking to the racers some other time.

**(Elsewhere)**

Candlehead poked Taffyta for what seemed like the fiftieth time that day.

"What is it this time, Candle?" Taffyta asked in an exasperated manner, though not rudely. She had always taken it upon herself to be responsible for the cake-themed racer, and that meant getting used to her quirks. Like poking.

"Well, I was thinking.." Candlehead started, looking concerned, but was interrupted by Gloyd, who was hanging out with them at the moment. Rancis, Taffyta, Candlehead, and Gloyd were currently at the center of the town, lounging about and talking casually as they walked in the direction of Rancis' house to get to a part of the candy cane forest that they liked to hang out in.

"That's a first." He snickered.

"Oh, can it. What were you thinking?" Taffyta asked curiously, leaning in to hear and now really wondering what her friend had to say. Candlehead was rarely so serious.

'_What could she be thinking that's gotten her so worried about it?'_ Taffyta thought, looking at the concerned expression on her friend's face.

"I was thinking that Vanellope might be sick or something." Candlehead said, thinking pretty hard about it and idly twisting her hair around a finger as she spoke. "We never see her around unless she's with Ralph, and they usually stay in the forest somewhere in in the castle, or even in the GCS. When Ralph or one of her other out-of-this-game friends can't visit, she just races then keeps to herself all day until the roster race, then goes back inside right after." Candlehead pointed out. "But, I might just be imagining it." She shrugged it off, but she still seemed confused with the matter.

Now that had Taffyta thinking as well. She knew that their new president wasn't sick, but everything Candlehead had pointed out was true.

Taffyta thought hard about it for a moment, and an idea of what was going on formed in her head. "I think…" she started slowly, "I think Vanellope just doesn't want to hang out with us." She frowned at the thought.

"What? Why not?" Gloyd asked with a frown of his own. "Don't you remember how she was always going on about wanting to be friends with us back in her glitch days?" He protested, furrowing his brow.

"That's exactly the point! Every single time she asked to be friends, we were awful to her! Just, think about it, would _you_ want to be friends with everyone if they did some of the stuff we did to her, to you?" Taffyta asked accusingly, raising an eyebrow.

"Well….." Gloyd lowered his head in defeat. "No. I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone."

"Exactly. But, we all feel pretty bad now, don't we? The only thing is…no matter what we do now, it'll look bad in somebody else's eyes. If we wait and just don't interact with her until she tries to talk to us, it'll be like we don't care about what we did all those years, but if we take the first move and tell her we're really sorry…It'll look to some people like we're only sorry because of her new status as president of the game. No matter what we do, we'll lose! And I don't 'do' losing!" Taffyta paced back and forth as she ranted to her friends, throwing her arms out occasionally to emphasize points.

"Well…Maybe, before we do anything, we should figure out where we really do stand on the matter. Is anything you said true?" Rancis said slowly, trying to figure it out.

"D-do you think… do you think that maybe that really _is _how we feel?" He breathed, shoulders slumped miserably, and a slight dampness in his eyes became apparent as he looked at the ground shamefully.

The group of friends grew tense, sinking into an unnerving silence like it was nesquik-sand. The long silence left plenty of time for reflection, and even more time for guilt to seep in, time that each of them spent thinking, each about different things.

Rancis was thinking about what had ever gotten into him that could have made him think that being mean to _anyone_ was okay.

Taffyta was thinking about her own motives, thinking about what Rancis asked. Was she really being shallow and just trying to make herself look like a better person by pretending she had no ulterior motive for feeling bad and wanting to make right her wrong?

Gloyd was thinking about the tense silence.

Candlehead was thinking about riding a unicorn through a meadow and lighting it on fire with her candle, then basking in the sweet scent of the burning nature and running off to set an isolated candy village on fire to see how bright it burned and whether or not candy citizens liked to be on fire.

Taffyta drew a deep breath in as she reached her conclusion, and her friends' eyes turned to her quickly, wondering what the answer was. The thick silence began to seep away as she lifted her head to look her friends in the eyes.

"No." Taffyta got that one short word out first, and the confidence behind it comforted her friends, if only just a little.

"Everything we did was wrong, completely wrong, yes…" She shook her head slowly and continued speaking. "But she never heard what …" She trailed off as her face gave way to an expression of anger. "She never heard what _Turbo_ told us." From the way she spat that name out, it was clear that the mere mention of him seemed to leave a bad taste in her mouth. All three of her friends cringed visibly at the name.

"He fed us lies, but he didn't want to make us _hate _her. He was trying to make us _fear_ her." She practically growled.

In all their talking and thinking, none of the racers had noticed the tall person behind them, who made herself known at that moment.

"And with the fear, you pipsqueaks made the hate all on your own." All four friends nearly jumped out of their skin when Calhoun said this, having not known that she was there before.

"What do you mean by that?" Candlehead asked curiously. She asked this about many things, but this time it just happened to actually be about something that had other people wanting to ask the same thing.

"Fear is what breeds hate." Calhoun said knowingly. "You feared shortstop because she was different, right? Not something you were used to, not something you wanted to deal with." She said coolly, looking to the side and then back at the kids. "You had no idea how she worked, you knew absolutely nothing about her. How were you supposed to know if she was some sort of impossible piece of code that wasn't programmed by the makers of the game? How were you supposed to know if she was going to do something bad to you if you let your guard down near her?" She received curious expressions at this. "You didn't. But not knowing anything about her started to make you mad. So you made things up. You gave yourself _excuses_ for not treating her well. You pretended that she wasn't sentient, you imagined away the tears and the injuries you caused her. You practically made her out to be some sort of devil's advocate any time she retaliated against you, which was self-defense on her part anyways, from what I hear. And all the while, you lived in your own, perfect little worlds, where you didn't have to question anything. And that's _exactly_ what Turbo wanted you to do." Calhoun narrowed her eyes. All of the children now had mortified expressions, mixtures of fear, guilt, remorse, shame, and shock crossing their faces as the full extent of what had happened dawned upon them. Calhoun's facial expression stayed hardened.

"It started out as fear, and it escalated to hate because fear made you feel vulnerable, and because it stung your pride. I understand fear perfectly. I understand everything you did, very well." Calhoun suddenly and inexplicably went down on a knee to look them all in the eyes. She was intimidating by all means, but she wasn't showing direct anger.

"And in spite of _all of that,_ your president forgave you willingly. So man up and do what's right, you have no time to waste dawdling when your commander still questions her own standpoint with her 'troops'. Make nice, or fail trying." Calhoun abruptly stood up and turned on a heel, continuing on her way to the castle, most likely to visit Vanellope.

Just as she was about to go out of hearing range, Calhoun shouted back to them: "That's an order!"

Taffyta turned and looked at her friends, most of which were still digesting everything they had just heard and then some. Except for Candlehead. She was currently mesmerized by the flame on her candle, having taken her helmet off in the middle of Calhoun's rant, and was simply staring intensely into the fire.

She sighed and snapped Rancis and Gloyd back to attention, though she didn't bother trying with Candlehead. She was long gone until she decided to stop staring into that fire.

"So, you guys…do you want to wait a while, think everything over well, and all that? Right now, I think we have a lot of reflection to do. We also have a lot of hiding to do, because I think that Vanellope's soldier friend will give us a beating if she figures out that we're trying to put it off." Taffyta said, glancing warily in the direction Calhoun had gone off in, towards the castle. She quickly began to speed walk in the direction of Rancis' house.

"She scares me…" Gloyd whimpered, all of his usual confidence lacking. "One time, this pie prank I set up missed someone, and it hit her husband in the face instead…" He shuddered at the memory, and shielded his 'down there' area protectively, before turning in the direction of his own house. "I have to go, I have a lot on my mind…including safety." He then ran off.

Candlehead snapped out of her trance soon after, and looked around the town square in a confused manner. "What were we doing again? Oh yeah, the sergeant was talking to us….hmm, I need to go get a match and add a little more flame to my candle…I'm going to go home, okay? Night Taff, night Rancis!" Candlehead skipped off merrily, leaving Rancis and Taffyta in the town and walking towards Rancis' house so that he could also retreat for the night.

**(POV shift)**

"So, umm…I guess we both really have a lot to think about, huh?" Rancis commented, glancing over at his friend.

'_And that's an understatement.'_ He thought to himself.

"Yeah." Taffyta breathed, letting all of the wound up tension out of her system. "I never thought about some of that stuff. It's….it's really quite the situation, isn't it?"

"You said it." Rancis agreed wholeheartedly, nodding. "So, where are you staying tonight?" He asked tentatively, not quite sure whether this was a sore subject or not. Tafffyta's house had been eaten and destroyed by Cy-bugs during their brief invasion, and hadn't reset because the racers had all made their houses, they weren't initially coded in, and she had taken to simply bunking with the other racers.

"Hmm? Oh, I hadn't thought about that…I guess it's not too late to ask Jubileena…" Taffyta muttered in response, trying to think.

"Um, if you'd like, you could stay at my house, I guess. It's late. My house really isn't much, but, uh, it's shelter." Rancis was thoroughly embarrassed throughout the statement, he knew very well he'd catch it with the other guys for letting a _girl_ into his house to stay the night, something that was often equated to romance. In truth he had no romantic interest in Taffyta, seeing her more as an overbearing sibling who won at everything.

People used to say that he had a romantic interest in _himself, _but he found that he wasn't nearly as vain after the reset of the game. He was often rather shy, now. Maybe it _was_ just him being shy, maybe it was the fact that Turbo's rule only brought out the worst in people and never brought decency, so once he was wiped of its stain on his personality he had to develop a whole new one. He wasn't sure _what_ it was, but suddenly he felt like he had been selfish and rude for most of his life and was trying to make up for it now.

He was also embarrassed because his house really wasn't much, though something was still better than nothing.

'_Please, please don't accept.'_ He pleaded mentally, willing Taffyta to say no.

"No, it's fine." Taffyta shook her head, "I can bunk with Juby. Thanks for the offer though." Rancis tried to restrain any signs of obvious relief until Taffyta left.

She walked away, and when she was out of earshot, he let out a sigh of relief and whispered to himself, "That was a close one…"

He slowly walked towards his home thinking harder about the conversation with Calhoun.

He was smart, and he understood most of it at face value right away, but there was more to it, he was sure. The simple equation of 'fear = hate' made more sense than he'd have liked it to, that wasn't what he was questioning. He was questioning Calhoun's knowledge on their actions and the motives behind them. She got into their heads so easily. Rancis realized with a start that everything Calhoun had said was true.

They did that. They did all of that. They did pretend she wasn't a living, feeling character like they were. They _did_ imagine away all of the very _real_ signs of pain and suffering coming from her, as they were signs that maybe she did feel and think just like they did, and they wanted nothing in common with the unknown, unnatural thing that King Candy –Turbo – had made her into by word of mouth.

Turbo had preached about why she was bad. Many times.

Rancis tried to think back to some of the things the now-deceased racer had said about 'the glitch'.

"_It wasn't programmed by the makers of the game! It's unnatural! It shouldn't exist by right!"_ the lisping voice rattled in his mind.

"_It feeds off of madness, it comes to the racetrack to cause chaos! And if it races and crosses the finish line, It'll transfer some of its glitching code onto the racer behind it, and then there'll be two of them! That's how a game goes out of order!"_ Lies, lies, so many lies, that voice had told him.

"_Rancis, you cannot feel bad for anything like that. It looks like a character, carries itself like one, and is astonishingly good at faking emotion. But it is not a character, and that fact will always remain. Those tears were fake. The pleading was fake. The appearance of the glitch is probably also fake, I bet it doesn't even look like a person when it's not wearing the disguise of a girl. Maybe it has sharp claws to rip real, coded characters up with under that disguise. You certainly wouldn't feel bad for it then, would you? I know I wouldn't." _Rancis clutched his head in anguish, He had believed all of that, once. He was such a terrible, terrible person.

Did Vanellope even know half of the rumors, half of the things Turbo had told all of the racers bout her? He knew that they were all fake, but other racers…there was word going around the other racers that some of them were true. They still had the nerve to be mean to her, only this time they did it in the form of whispers on the street and gossip behind the scenes. Was Vanellope blissfully unaware? Or did she know about all of it and simply not want to say anything?

Rancis groaned and hit his head against the door of his house, while he had been thinking, he had completed the walk to his house.

He idled by the door for a moment before walking in to his house and flopping onto the comfort of his bed. He tossed his hat and jacket aside, near the bookshelf because he didn't really have anywhere to put them.

He muffled a sigh with his pillow and then turned up to face the ceiling, staring at it and trying to sort out everything in his head. Tomorrow he had the day off. It was Sunday tomorrow.

After staring at his wall for a long amount of time, Rancis decided that he needed to talk to Vanellope first thing tomorrow. They had already held the roster race earlier after closing, so he'd have to go straight to the castle and ask for her.

And he was going to do it without Taffyta, or any help. They were all just going to keep putting it off, and he wasn't sure they even really cared as much as he did. This was something he needed to do on his own, and besides, he just couldn't do everything with Taffyta anymore. They were still friends, but Rancis was beginning to get annoyed by her arrogance. It had lessened a little, but nonetheless, it was there, and the fact that Taffyta would still boast and rub victories in people's faces when she was worked up after a race bothered him. A lot.

He personally was trying to be less vain, surely she could at least try and be less arrogant.

So he was going to do it on his own, and he was going to do a great job. He would clean the slate, and then everyone would be friends!

He shut his eyes and fell soundly asleep, already both excited and nervous for the next day.

**(Back with the president)**

_KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK! _

Vanellope heard the loud noise and darted out of her room, pushing the door open. Someone was at the front door? Well, great timing, 'cause she was starting to grow bored of drawing pictures.

She ran to the front door and opened it without hesitation. She looked up to see the Sarge grinning down at her.

Wait, _grinning?_

Vanellope did a double take, her eyes looking ready to pop out of her head from surprise.

"Since when does Sergeant strictness _smile?_" she teased incredulously, grinning ear to ear to match Calhoun's.

"I'll have you know it's not very often." Calhoun played along, walking into the castle casually.

'_Wow, she's in a really good mood right now!'_ Vanellope thought, amazed at this side to her no-nonsense soldier friend. She ran over reasons in her head as to why the Sarge might be so happy.

Her eyes widened as she recalled something Felix had told her a few days ago.

"He finally did it, didn't he?!" She exclaimed excitedly, her eyes lighting up with happiness. She practically skipped in a circle around the Sarge, before hugging her leg in sheer joy.

She had no idea that this is what Felix meant when he said he'd propose 'soon'. But whatever, right? It actually happened! From what Vanellope heard, marriage was a big deal.

"That's right, kiddo. I finally got him to swear, after two weeks of trying. To be honest I almost thought it was impossible." Calhoun laughed, then looked down at Vanellope, who was digesting that sentence and practically choking on laughter from getting so ahead of herself.

She gave the Sarge a sheepish smile, and peeled off her leg.

Calhoun raised an eyebrow at her behavior. "I didn't expect you to be so excited, shortstop."

"Heheh, well, to be honest, I was just really, extra excited to have somebody visiting me. If you had walked up to me and said something dumb I still probably woulda been over the moon happy, you know?" Vanellope rubbed the back of her head just as sheepishly as she smiled. She wasn't lying. She was just leaving out _half_ of the truthful explanation.

"That reminds me, I had a nice talking to with some of the other racer kids in the game. They were debating something and I just had to throw my two cents in." Calhoun proceeded to reminisce about the talk, while Vanellope groaned and facepalmed. She was happy to have changed the subject, but…

"Your 'two cents' didn't involve any shooting or mental scarring, did it?" Vanellope asked drily, resting a hand on her hip in that position Calhoun seemed to use all the time. She found that it made looking tough just the slightest bit easier. She had picked up a few things from the Sarge.

"No shooting involved. I'm afraid the other question can't be answered. It _shouldn't_ have been mentally scarring, but then again, some of those kids are pansies if I've ever seen 'em." Calhoun replied with a short nod.

"Anyways, I came over here to check on you for the guys, make sure nothing bad was going on, all that. I also wanted to tell you that Wreck-it is almost done helping with the construction. Now, I need to go do some night patrols in my game, so, I'll see you later." Calhoun wrapped up the visit in a businesslike fashion, and gave a quick salute as she walked towards the door. Vanellope returned it, knowing that Calhoun didn't do waving.

When the visit was all said and done, Vanellope found herself wishing that it had lasted longer. She scowled at her own thoughts.

'_Since when did I get so dependent on other people's company?'_ She sighed and walked back to her room, deciding that she could just sleep early for lack of better things to do.

**(Breakline/ transition) **

Vanellope's eyes slowly opened as a soft noise came to her ears.

_Knock…..knock….knock…_

Yawning, she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and slipped out of bed before quickly getting dressed in her usual clothes. She wondered who would be visiting in the morning around this time.

Ralph usually slept in on his days off, Felix hung out with Calhoun all day and vice versa…who would be visiting?

She made her way to the door, not even bothering to put her hair up in a ponytail. She was too curious to see who was at the door to do much of anything with her hair.

She opened the door, still rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and was surprised to see Rancis standing there.

He noted her sleepy appearance and the lack of her usual ponytail, and he quickly stammered apologies.

"Oh! D-did I wake you up? I'm really sorry, I figured…."

"Chill out, Rancis. I was going to get up sooner or later." Vanellope dismissed it with a wave. "Do you want to come in? It gets kinda cold in the morning." She asked, moving out of the doorway for him.

He sheepishly shook his head and walked in. Vanellope closed the door behind him and brushed some of her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ears and making a mental note to put her hair up in its licorice ponytail as soon as possible.

She pulled her ponytail off her wrist and began to put her hair up with it, talking in the meantime.

"So, what's up? Do you need something?" She asked him inquisitively, head tilted as she tried to think of a reason he'd come to the castle to see her. And why alone? Wasn't he usually with Taffyta or one of the other guys, or something?

'_This is going to be an interesting morning, isn't it?'_ She thought dryly.

He stared directly at his feet, rocking back and forth on them nervously. "Well….not really, but, I….I want to…I want to…."

"You want to _what?_ Spit it out already!" Vanellope said, throwing her arms out. "It's not like I'm going to bite!" She added playfully.

"I want to know if you want to hang out today!" He blurted out suddenly, before he riveted his attention to his shoes, apparently becoming very interested in them. He looked just about ready to start trembling as he waited for a response.

Vanellope looked at Rancis curiously. Why would he want to hang out with her? They didn't really know each other that well, but then again, she didn't know any of the racers very well. But, it's not like she would turn him down because of that…

"Umm…Sure, Rancis. Why're you so nervous about it though? It's not like I would've flat out turned you down." She accepted, then poked his shoulder as a cue that he should look up.

"Sorry. I figured you might have plans." He looked up, his face visibly reddened from nervousness.

"So, why the sudden urge to hang out?" Vanellope asked, prodding for answers as she headed towards the door again. "And what do you want to do?"

"Hmm? Well, you could pick, but, I was thinking maybe we could have a one v one race, maybe go get a root beer after…." He answered, then looked up apprehensively, "A-as for the other question… I guess, I have to start somewhere….I don't want it to be so awkward every day with people. Every day after the races...nobody really says anything to you, and when they do it's just small-talk…and you don't say much either….and then we just shake hands and walk away. That's awkward…I want to be able to talk to you normally, I guess…So I thought maybe if we hung out and did something that wasn't strictly for our job…"

"That it would break the ice!" Vanellope exclaimed excitedly, interrupting him. He didn't seem to mind, he actually looked rather relieved to not have to be talking anymore. "That makes sense!" She moved over to Rancis and ruffled his hair happily, he made an attempt to fix it but his arm was quickly grabbed by Vanellope, who began walking the both of them out of the door.

"Alright buttercup, let's have that race! We'll go get that root beer you were talking about later at Tapper's!"

Rancis followed along, smiling a bit as they made their way to the tracks.

"This is gonna be great, Fluggerbutter! Do you want to place bets? Maybe, if I win the root beer is your treat, and if you win, it's mine. Does that sound good?" Vanellope asked excitedly, looking to Rancis for acceptance.

He shrugged. "I figured it be my treat anyways, but sure, why not have a bet?"

"Great! So, is this race going to be power-ups or no power ups?" She asked again, now standing at a box by the finish line and programming in the details of the race so that it would recognize when they finished, and who won, and all that stuff.

"Hmm…power ups, I guess. Do you think you've gotten all the details set now?" Rancis replied, motioning to Vanellope who was shutting the box.

She gave him a thumbs up. "Yep! It's a one v one race, three laps, power ups, first to cross the finish line wins, last to cross the finish line pays for root beer! Good luck!" She pulled her racing goggles on and hopped into her kart, as Rancis did the same across from her.

"Good luck to you too!" they revved their engines and waited for the announcer to start the race.

"3…." Vanellope gripped her wheel tightly. "2…" She shifted the kart into drive.

"1…GO!" Both racers slammed the gas pedals of their karts, and took off, leaving candy-coated dust in their wake.

**AN: Wouldn't it take a while for the racers and Vanellope to get comfortable being near each other? Wouldn't it be awkward? And what about all of the terrible memories they have of each other? Those wouldn't go away overnight. So, this fic is about the road to recovery between them. I'm really having fun writing it. Thanks for reading!**


	2. Press Start

**AN: Okay, so, chapter 2 is finally up! This one took a while because I was having computer problems, but it's all been sorted out. Thanks for all of the positive feedback on the first chapter, I can't tell you how cool that is. **

The two ended up driving directly beside each other for a short period of time, each struggling to pull ahead of the other. Their previous awkwardness forgotten, Vanellope took this time for some conversation.

"Hey, Butterfingers! Get a good look at the dust I'm leaving, cause when I pull ahead that's all you'll be seeing for a while!" She exclaimed, eyes darting between the road and her opponent.

"I wouldn't be too sure of that!" Rancis shot back, though he slowed even while he was saying this. The first turn was coming up, and he slowed just a little so that he could take it easily and with low risk.

Vanellope, on the other hand, did the exact opposite, speeding up and tackling the turn so recklessly that her kart nearly scratched the divider barriers between the track and the stands. With some luck and good reflexes, she managed to pull of her risky turn, and the benefits came quickly. She was now much further ahead.

Rancis accelerated and tried to catch up, he had lost a decent bit of ground in his caution.

"So, you were saying?" Vanellope called back, a hint of smugness in her voice. She whizzed through the power ups, picking up a 'Sticky situation' trap but deciding to save it for later.

"The race isn't over yet, smart aleck!" he responded, confidently gripping his steering wheel with one hand and shifting his kart into full throttle with the other. Rancis sped up even more, and managed to gain about a meter on her. When he passed through the power ups, he grinned at what he had gotten.

"Licorice launcher!"

"Not what I was hoping for, but it'll do the trick." He muttered to himself, and quickly activated it.

Immediately, a giant slingshot appeared behind him, and the animation sequence pulled his kart back into it and launched him far ahead of where he was.

His kart lurched as it hit the ground, only a few feet behind Vanellope's now.

He slammed on the gas and caught up with her, staying well away from the 'dirty air' by her kart, the air that was moving in weird directions due to the speed at which she was barreling through it. He didn't draft her either, instead going side-to-side with her kart once again as he tried to pass her.

"Still so sure you'll win?" He asked, though he kept his eyes firmly on the road.

He had the advantage at the moment, since he was in the low groove of the track- he was closer to the inside than the outskirts and the stands, and had just a little bit less ground to cover.

But, Vanellope had the advantage in terms of kart- hers had higher speed, where his kart was balanced on both speed and handling. So the two were neck and neck.

"Impressive." Vanellope complimented, though the fact that she was grinning deviously probably meant she had something up her sleeve. "It's going to take more than that to pass me though."

She activated her power up then, and the animation for her trap began.

A large wad of gum came flying onto the track in front of Rancis, leaving no time for him to avoid it. The entire front clip of his car, and the two front tires, became lodged in the mess.

He groaned and smacked his head against his wheel as Vanellope flew past him again, grinning cheekily at his predicament.

"At least you came close!" She sang teasingly as she continued to get further ahead of Rancis.

A few seconds later, the trap despawned, and Rancis wasted no time getting back on the track. He was a good 12 kart lengths behind Vanellope.

"Just you wait, I'll catch up!" He shouted, just as he watched Vanellope get to lap two. 14 seconds after, he was also on lap two.

This time, Rancis' goal was to draft Vanellope, then use the slingshot maneuver to get ahead. But, to do that he'd have to get much closer behind her.

He willed his kart to go as fast as it could, pressing down on the gas so hard he feared he might just break through the bottom of his kart.

Despite going as fast as he could, he only gained a little ground on her.

He scanned the area for power ups, and found a few not far ahead. Vanellope drove past them, but was too far to the left and didn't pick anything up. Perfect.

He drove through them, and picked up a power up box.

"Sugar speed boosts!"

"Yes!" Rancis exclaimed. He used all three in short bursts and managed to pull in front of Vanellope.

"Who's eating dust now, Schweetz?" he laughed, his eyes darting to the rear view mirror to check her reaction.

"I didn't see that one coming." Was her simple reply, with a straighter face than Rancis had ever seen her wear.

She gripped her wheel and drove behind Rancis, drafting him and staying in the vacuum left behind his kart, where there wasn't air resistance.

'_So, she's going to do the same thing I had planned on passing her with…that's ironic.'_ Rancis thought to himself, speeding up in a futile attempt to leave Vanellope behind.

She grinned and sped up, then used broke out of the draft and used the added speed to pull up right beside Rancis' kart.

Rancis turned his wheel in the direction of her kart, trying to make her pull back to avoid bumping into his kart. To his surprise, she stayed where she was and pushed back, and the karts clashed.

"Trading paint now, are we? You're gonna want a little more force behind that…like this!" She laughed, and bumped into Rancis' kart forcefully.

It turned into a match of seeing whose' kart could overpower the others', and the two karts rubbed and clashed together as Vanellope laughed and poked Rancis over the side of the kart to bother him.

"Is this even allowed?!" Rancis asked frantically, trying to keep his kart under control as it threatened to tip over from the force Vanellope's was exerting on it. And she wasn't even trying, either! She was just leaning over the side of her kart and moving the wheel with one hand!

"Of course it is, Fluggerbutter! We made the rules, remember? 'Sides, I'm the president, right? And this is just a fun race!" She grinned playfully, and spun Rancis' hat around on his head as if to prove it.

"This thing could substitute as an extra wheel! How do you always keep it on your head?" She asked, still laughing and reaching over to spin the hat.

"Is it even occurring to you that we're going at 42 miles per hour right now?!" He exclaimed, trying to get Vanellope's attention back on the road and the race, for fear of one of them crashing.

"Yeah, sure, that's occurred to me before. But, seriously, how in programming is _this_ thing supposed to _protect_ your head? It only covers a part of it!" She waved as if to wave his concern away and continued to goof off.

"…there's a turn in roughly ten seconds, you know." Rancis tried weakly, pointing to said turn.

"You worry too much. Turns are easy! Watch!" Vanellope finally stopped leaning over her kart's edge, left Rancis behind, and charged into the turn at full speed, driving along the side of the barrier before falling back to the ground.

Rancis just took the turn normally, though he paled as Vanellope performed all of her risky stunts.

"You know, that's kinda dangerous!" He called out to her, now that he was a good distance behind her again.

"It got me ahead, didn't it? Besides, the danger is half the fun of this!" She shouted back, looking over her shoulder at the other racer.

"You'd better hurry up, 'cause lap three is right ahead!" She told him in an encouraging tone, before passing into said lap. "Let's have an exciting race! Catch up, quick!"

She rounded a corner in her usual, daredevil fashion, and at this point Rancis could only make out her ponytail, waving around. He had to catch up, and fast.

"Candy wrappers!" He heard the announcer exclaim as Vanellope got a power up. Candy wrappers were the Sugar Rush equivalent of banana peels.

He grit his teeth and steered around the traps, which Vanellope had cleverly placed very close together so that he would need to _really_ turn to get around all of them.

He whizzed into the power ups, and got molasses missiles, projectiles that shot molasses, and slowed the opponent for a while. Just what he needed to get back in the race.

He activated his power up and a large gun appeared on the end of his kart, loaded in five spots with molasses. He got five shots, no more, no less.

"Haha, now this is getting interesting!" Vanellope cheered as she waited for Rancis to shoot.

He aimed the first one, and fired.

Vanellope swerved out of the way, and a hunk of molasses was left where she had been at. This happened two other times as well.

"You only have two shots left, but you hafta hit me for them to do any good!" She teased him, sticking her tongue out and even going as far to lift her hands off the wheel and mimicking an exaggerated yawn.

He took one more shot at her, and it fell just short of hitting the back tires of her kart.

He took aim one last time, though this time, he fired at something else. He shot at the wall of the mountain they were about to go past. He figured it would cave in or collapse and it would stop her in her tracks.

But, to his disappointment, it did nothing.

"Ha! You missed by a mile!" Vanellope was cracking up, slowing quite a bit because she was bent over with laughter and not even _trying_ to steer. Rancis saw this as his opportunity and quickly tried to close the gap between them by speeding in to where her kart was at.

She became aware of this halfway through, and quickly straightened out and began to accelerate again.

"That was pretty clever, distracting me like that. How'd you think of it?" Vanellope asked casually, as if neither of them were in the middle of a heated competition or going at high speeds.

"Actually, I thought the side might cave in.." Rancis admitted sheepishly.

"Oh, you mean like it is now?" Vanellope replied, innocently enough.

"Yep...wait, _what?!"_ Rancis exclaimed, and turned around to see most of the mountain's siding collapsing on top of itself and rapidly approaching the two racers.

"There's an avalanche!" He cried in a panic, and accelerated to top speed as he barreled down the track.

"You don't say?" Vanellope shot back, though she was biting back a laugh as she said it. She had also gone to top speed to escape the mountain. "Gee, I wonder what could have _caused_ such an avalanche?"

"This isn't the time for sarcasm!" Rancis protested, though he had to admit that it was comforting to know that Vanellope was so unconcerned about it. It's like there wasn't even anything wrong when she did that. Maybe that was the point of it.

"There's _always_ time for sarcasm. And besides, we're still having a race here! The finish line is right there!" She pointed out, motioning to the finish line in the distance.

Rancis leaned in and tried to go faster, and was slowly gaining on Vanellope.

He kept his kart at full throttle, he slammed his foot down on the gas, and gripped his steering wheel like it was a lifeline as he tried to catch up.

He was _just_ behind her…only a little closer….He was now at the side of her kart! A little more and he'd win!

But, the finish line came too quickly.

"TIE!" The announcer shouted, and the race ended. The track reset behind them, the avalanche reversed, the scuff marks on the sides of the track disappeared, all of the loose stuff on the tracks vanished, and any damage done to their karts was erased.

"Good game, Rancis! That was fun!" Vanellope pulled her racing goggles off so that they hung loosely around her neck as she reached for a handshake.

Rancis took it, though he looked confused.

"You aren't upset that we tied?" He asked skeptically.

"Nope. Although, since we _did_ bet on it, I guess we'll just end up splitting the pay at Tappers. That was a great race, you're really good! That whole thing with the avalanche was hilarious, right?" Vanellope walked over to his side and slugged him in the shoulder playfully, before wheeling her kart back to where it had already been positioned for the races on Monday.

Rancis laughed a little as he did the same with his kart. "Yeah, I guess that _was_ kinda funny."

"See? I told you that you needed to worry less!" She smirked and looked over him as she put her goggles away in her pocket, before blinking a few times and lifting her head. "Hmm?" She immediately turned around and scanned her surroundings.

"Hi, Taffyta." She greeted to the left with a small wave, though it seemed to Rancis like she was greeting nothing.

Taffyta showed a few moments later, walking out from behind one of the stands.

"That was a pretty great race, you guys! Why're you up so early, though?" Taffyta asked, trying not to sound too interested.

"We were just having a race for the fun of it." Vanellope shrugged. "We're going to Tappers right now, though...err, would you want to come?" She asked awkwardly, trying to cover up her uncertainty with the idea.

"No, I already made plans. I was headed over here to ask Rancis if he wanted to come with me and Candle, and I watched the end of your race, so I guess he's busy. No problem, I'll go tell Candle that you can't make it. See you later!" Taffyta abruptly turned around and quickly walked away, leaving the other two racers to digest what had just happened.

Vanellope was the first to speak.

"Well that was awkward." She said unceremoniously, rocking back and forth on her feet.

"Yep." Rancis agreed.

The two exchanged glances.

"Soo…you want to go to Tappers now?" Vanellope asked, trying to change the subject.

"Yeah! Let's go get some root beers!" Rancis agreed, and started walking towards their game's exit.

Vanellope followed.

**(POV shift)**

Taffyta sat down on a bench near Candlehead's house and waited for Candlehead to meet up with her there.

She was wondering what Rancis was doing. Didn't she suggest waiting a little? And what does he do? He _goes straight to Vanellope._

Did her advice mean nothing, now?

'_It wasn't that I was going to put it off, but I really do need time to think. I mean, how am I supposed to go about just walking up to someone that I was such a jerk to for most of my life? It's not going to be easy. But, Rancis just decided to go ahead and start the whole thing. Now I'll be expected to go make nice with her, and all the other racers will too. I bet I'll end up publically humiliated when Vanellope rejects me…huh, that's so ironic, now that I think about it. I mean, just a month ago, none of this was on my mind and I had all the odds in my favor. Now Vanellope has all the cards, though. It's funny how things like that work out.'_ Taffyta thought dryly, tapping on the bench with her fingers impatiently as she sat and waited.

Guilt began its attack on her as she sat. She made arguments for herself as it did.

What was she supposed to _say_ to someone she had tormented like that?

How was she supposed to _act?_

Would the past _ever_ truly be erased? Would the slate _ever_ be clean?

And, even when she became friends with Vanellope, would the guilt just fade away? No.

She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, mulling over ideas of how she should go about making friends with the president.

"It shouldn't be this complicated…" She grumbled to herself.

"What?" All of a sudden, Candlehead became visible, giving a curious look to Taffyta.

"Nothing, Candle! Let's go hang out, alright?" Taffyta recovered quickly. Candlehead didn't need to know about any of this stuff.

"Great! Let's go to the clearing and play!" Candlehead exclaimed enthusiastically, holding up a ball. She giggled and ran towards the hangout, while Taffyta rolled her eyes, but smiled and followed along.

This would cheer her up for a while, at least.

**(POV shift)**

Vanellope grinned wryly and took a sip of her root beer. "So, are you usually hiding under the counter when you come here, or what? I come here sometimes with Ralph, and I haven't seen you once. Or any of the other racers, now that I think about it."

Rancis looked up from his root beer and set it down to answer. "Well, we usually stay in Sugar Rush. We weren't ever really allowed to go unless it was an emergency or we needed supplies from some other game, so, I guess it's kind of a habit." He shrugged, and glanced over to where Tapper was at. It was far from a slow day there, the place was packed.

"Huh, that's weird. I guess it kinda explains why the tram was removed from our game's outlet. King Crazy took it. So, have you been here before?" Vanellope asked curiously, taking a moment to put her root beer down. It was still half full.

"Nope. This root beer is _really_ good though." He held up his near-empty cup, and promptly took another sip.

"Yeah, well if you keep drinking it like that, you're going to need a bigger glass. Like those guys. Come to think of it, I haven't seen them in a while, I should go catch up with them." She motioned with her head towards the bar counter, and the people sitting at it.

Bowser, Dr. Eggman, Zangief, Cyril the zombie, M. Bison, Shao Kahn, Sephiroth, and Satine were sitting there, and in the center of the counter was what seemed to be a robotic potato.

Vanellope noticed Rancis' jaw drop when she hopped off her stool and walked over to their table to greet them, but she paid it little attention. He probably just noticed that he was out of root beer.

"Hey guys!" She hopped up to the counter, and grinned as she dangled off of it with only her head and arms visible to the antagonists.

"Hello, Vanellope." Dr Eggman greeted, whereas Zangief took a more direct approach.

"Ah, Vanellope! So good to see you again!" He scooped her up from the other side and pulled her up onto the counter. She greeted the potato, which she knew to be GLaDOS.

"Hi, how's that potato treatin' ya?"

"Ha. Ha. Come to my game sometime, I believe you'd be very useful for sampling my Neurotoxin." GLaDOS replied, sparking a little from using electricity to fake a laugh.

"She's just bitter." Satine explained, patting the potato.

"Ahh! BIRD! BIRD! Get it off!-Powering…d-o-w-n…" GLaDOS shut off, having blown a fuse from freaking out with the limited power supply of the potato.

"She'll be fine." M. Bison commented, tucking the potato into his pocket.

"So, how has the racing of your karts gone today?" Zangief asked warmly, patting his thighs. "Did you go fast?"

"Yeah! I tied my friend in a race. We went super fast! Hey, you guys hafta meet Rancis! Get over here, Fluggerbutter!" Vanellope waved Rancis over, and he nervously walked over to the cluster of villains.

'_Yeesh, what's he so afraid of? He looks pretty scared.'_

"So, you're one of those other racers we heard about." Sephiroth said in a monotone voice, showing little expression. "I respect your leader you know. You'd best do the same if you want to wake up tomorrow." His lips curled into a dry smirk, implying that he was joking.

Zangief slapped his thigh and laughed loud enough for just about everyone in Tappers to hear. "That was a good one, Sephiroth!" Vanellope laughed along with him.

Rancis laughed weakly, but once again, Vanellope chalked his nervousness up to something else.

"Lost! Arm!" Cyril exclaimed, pointing with one of his hatchets to his left arm, which had fallen off and was now laying by Rancis' feet.

Rancis picked it up and, shaking, handed it back to the zombie.

"Thank.. you!" Cyril proceeded to put his arm back in his socket.

"So, I was talking to Ralph, and he's told me he's almost finished helping the construction of the new apartments in Niceland. Are you excited to hear that?" Dr. Eggman inquired, leaning on the counter.

"Definitely! Hey, Bowser! You need help with that?" Vanellope replied, then glanced over at Bowser, who was trying and failing to get an itch that seemed to be partially covered by his shell.

"Yes…" He grunted, still trying to get it.

Vanellope carefully navigated the spikes on his shell and got it for him.

Bowser sighed blissfully and sat down.

"That gets you every time, doesn't it? It that like a sweet spot for Koopas or what?" Vanellope asked incredulously, hopping off his shoulder as he nodded a yes and moving over to talk with Satine some more.

"So, how's the underworld going? You're managing everything well?" She asked casually leaning on Zangief's leg.

"Yes! The demons are showing _great_ progress, they're almost house trained! I think soon I might be able to have guests over!" Satine exclaimed happily, banging his scepter on the ground.

"Really? Top shelf! That's great!" She fist bumped Satine and he chuckled happily.

"So much spunk. I'll have to invite you over sometime, you'd really liven up any get-togethers I have. Especially considering that most of my friends are undead." He grinned sheepishly.

"Ay, little girl. How would you be liking to smash car with Zangief and Ralph again? I found another one!" Zangief asked, poking Vanellope's shoulder as gently as possible, which was still pretty hard. She didn't notice, being used to roughhousing, and turned around.

"Sounds great! How about later today? I'll get Ralph in on it!" Vanellope agreed happily, nodding her agreement.

"I crush mans' skulls like sparrow's egg between thighs," Zangief patted his thigh to support this idea, "Ralph crushes bricks like snowballs with fists," He did Ralph's signature pose and lifted his arms before putting them down again, "And little girl helps us do it faster!" He laughed, and patted Vanellope's head as she snickered at his joke and his poor English.

"Hey, the Koopa kids wanted to know if you'd hang out with them in Mario Kart. They really have lots of fun the races there, and they figured since you're in a racing game and all, you'd want to check it out." Bowser asked, pointing with a claw towards the exit of Tappers, and presumably meaning to motion to the path to Mario Kart.

"Yeah! I've always wanted to check that game out! Tell 'em to come over to my game sometime, I'm usually free. We can go then!" Vanellope grinned, extremely happy to be talking to all of her friends. She wondered if one day she'd be able to have this kind of friendship with the racers. She hoped so. She noted that Rancis wasn't saying anything, but the group in general was forgetting about him. She guessed he was just shy.

"So, Vanellope, I tried using that engine block you suggested in one of my robots,"

'_I suggested that for his cars, but okay..'_ Vanellope thought, kind of amused at how fascinated Eggman was with robots.

"And they're moving a lot faster!" He finished.

"That's great! Try and outrace Sonic, you'll do it someday, right?" Vanellope encouraged him.

"That's the plan." Eggman nodded.

"Well, it looks like my buddy Rancis here has to do something, so we're gonna have to go. Nice catching up with you guys though! See you in about an hour, Zangief!" Vanellope waved her other friends goodbye, and grabbed Rancis to their table so that they could pay for the root beer and leave. She finished hers up while she was there, and then it was out the door for the two racers.

As the two are walking back to their game, Vanellope tries to figure out why Rancis was acting so weird around her other friends. She could consider Rancis a friend now, in a tentative way. They weren't complete strangers, and they were now on neutral territory…so, maybe 'acquaintances' would be a better term for it. She remembered hearing someone else say that word, and it stuck with her.

"So, Rancis, what was up with how you were acting back there? You looked pretty nervous." She began, bringing up the subject first.

"Umm, I was kinda scared. They're…really big. And I'm just not used to that…" He explained weakly, probably not even sure for himself why he had been nervous.

"Maybe you're just shy. They're all cool, those guys are all good friends of mine. I met 'em when Ralph took me to the Bad-Anon thingy, because I told him I wanted to go. It was sorta like being his show-and-tell for the day, which I thought was funny. We need to get you socialized, Buttercup. There are a lot of tall characters around here, if you haven't noticed." Vanellope remarked dryly, motioning around them to the many characters in the GCS.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe we can do that some other time. It was fun hanging out with you today though. You're going to go get Ralph now, right? I have to sort some stuff out at home. See you in the races tomorrow." Rancis grinned and stuck his hand out for a handshake, which Vanellope accepted.

He went back to Sugar Rush while she walked to Ralph's game to hang out with him and then go smash a car in Street Fighter.

She didn't allow her mind to linger on how shy and scared Rancis had been. It already happened, so it didn't matter much now.

She _did_ allow her mind to linger on ways to smash the car. She always had to get inventive, since she wasn't the strongest compared to her friends who would be with her.

With that on her mind, she went into the outlet for Fix-it Felix Jr., boarded the tram, and got into Ralph's house by glitching through the door. He didn't always want other visitors, but she was allowed in any time, mostly because he couldn't stop her from inviting herself in anyways. Also because she had special privileges as his best friend. That's what she said when people asked her, anyways.

"Hey, Stinkbrain! Guess what happened today?" She called aloud, finding the large wrecker in his living room/bedroom. He also had a kitchen and a bathroom, but his house was pretty small aside from that.

"Hey, kid! You finally showed up! I was just about to go look for ya, usually you come and pester me much earlier in the morning." He teased, though he got down on a knee to greet her. She launched into his chest in an attempted hug, though she could only really hug half his chest, or an arm. He returned it as best he could, before she got up onto her favorite perch on his shoulder.

"Yeah, well, I was busy. Rancis came to the castle in the morning and wanted to know if I'd hang out with him and stuff, and so…" Vanellope explained all of the events of the day, though she left out how Rancis got nervous, and the awkward and abrupt meeting with Taffyta. It was better for Ralph to think that everything got off without a hitch, anyways.

"Well, sounds like you've been having fun. So, we're going to go to Street Fighter in about 40 minutes, right?" Ralph asked, double-checking.

"Right." Vanellope confirmed, also nodding.

"Well, what're we waiting for? We have enough time to go talk to Felix and his girlfriend, and that's usually interesting. How far do you think he's gotten on the whole 'proposal' thing?" Ralph asked as the two already began to make their way to the Niceland building.

"I bet you five gold coins that it's not very far." Vanellope wagered, raising an eyebrow as if to ask Ralph if he'd take the bet.

"If I took that bet, I'd lose." He replied seriously, before the two began to laugh on their way up to the penthouse.

**AN: So, to clear a few things up (since I know someone will ask), the reason Sephiroth and GLaDOS were included was because I liked them and didn't want to leave them out. Since I need a reason to be able to include console game characters, here it is : Litwak's Family Fun Center /Arcade has a consoles in, wired into outlets and then behind protective covers. People who are playing games on it can go ask Litwak or another employee (assuming there are, in fact, other employees at the arcade) to change the games out by unlocking the protective case around the console and TV screen and switching the games, thus preventing theft of the console or it's games. The controllers are fastened to the consoles, and for controllers such as wii remotes and other detached controllers, they won't be stolen because other kids will want their turns and demand the remote, making theft unlikely since attention will be quickly drawn to them if they walk away with the controller. The game characters, even if their disc is not currently in the console when the arcade closes for the night, can exit through the outlet because all of the games, and characters of them, are in the console or memory card's save files rather than on the disc itself, so they can come out later when the arcade closes. And, my overly technical explanation comes to an end. I looked up more NASCAR terms again for the race scene, since I don't like those to be boring –even if it probably still was. Thank you so much for reading the story, and if you also read this long-as-crap AN, thanks for that as well. You get bonus points! **


	3. Intro

**AN: So, sorry this took so long, camping really disrupted my writing schedule...and my sleep schedule. I know it's really annoying when I take this long to put up a chapter, so I'll try and not take this long again. Anyways, at least I got it up now, right? **

**(Taffyta's POV)**

Taffyta glared at Rancis. She knew she was coming off pretty harsh, especially to her friend, but what else was she supposed to do?

"You just had to go and ask her today, didn't you?" She vented to her long-time friend. He winced but said nothing.

He had just gotten back from hanging out at Tappers with Vanellope, and Taffyta wasted no time in rushing at him.

"You _know_ that I needed more time to think, right? I mean, what if we do something wrong?" She continued. She was startled when Rancis spoke up and interrupted her.

"Well, I couldn't just sit around and do nothing!" He protested, walking closer to Taffyta. She almost backed up, but held her ground instead. "Why can't we all just be friends and get along? Is that so hard to do? Since when have you, of all people, had problems with making friends? Since when has it been rocket science to just, just, be _nice_ to somebody? Is it really too much to ask of you to just _try_, Taff?"

She flinched, and took a step back. Ouch. That really stung.

'_That's all true, but still…..It's…it's not that simple!'_ She thought, her heart rate picking up as she began to think over all of the worst case scenarios she had envisioned.

_What if? What if?_ A voice in the back of her head sang.

_What if she hates you? What if you hate her? What if?_

She shook her head and turned her mind back to the conversation at hand.

"It's not that easy, Rancis! I mean…..She hates us, doesn't she? If not all of us, she hates me in the very least. Why would she want or need to be _my _friend?" Taffyta voiced a few of her thoughts, hoping that maybe Rancis would understand and leave her alone. She wanted to think. She wanted to not be in a clearing and visible to everyone.

In all honesty, she wanted to hide under the covers in Candlehead's house and not come out for the rest of forever. Candle never used the guest bedroom anyways, right?

Rancis' features softened, but he stayed in front of her defiantly. "Have a little faith, Taff. I think Vanellope wants this all to be over with as much as you do."

He then smirked as he apparently thought of something. "Why don't you tag along next time we hang out? If scared little Taffyta feels like cowering behind me all the time, then I'll do all the talking, and you can just be waiting around behind while we have fun. Sound good?"

She gaped at her friend as he taunted her, and then glowered.

"No, that does not 'sound good'! Just you watch, Fluggerbutter, I'll go and talk to her myself tomorrow, and you'll have to eat those words!" She exclaimed without thinking before the words flew out of her mouth. She was too angry to think.

Much to her shock, Rancis smiled and moved out of the way.

"I knew you'd do that. Have fun hanging out with her tomorrow! After all, you can't go back on that, now can you?" He stepped aside casually and laughed as Taffyta paled and realized what had just happened.

"You tricked me!" She shouted, her eyes wide. "No fair!"

"Too late now." He chuckled, and walked away, leaving Taffyta in the outlet entryway alone. She rushed back to where Candlehead was.

"What was _that_ all about, Taff? You looked like a deer in headlights for a minute there." Candlehead remarked, walking towards Taffyta slowly. She seemed concerned.

Taffyta rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "Yeah, I probably did - wait, did you just say something smart?" Taffyta stopped mid-sentence and stared at her old friend as if she had grown another head.

"You know, cupcakes! Tee hee! I heard someone say that once and I was pretty sure it was a new flavor of cupcake. It has pink frosting, I think." Candlehead gave a goofy smile and hugged her friend tightly, while Taffyta relaxed.

"You were cringing and stuff, and since everything you're wearing is pink, you looked like a deer-in-headlights cupcake, haha! So, I thought you wanted one." Candlehead giggled and eventually released her friend.

'_That was weird, but it makes sense in a way. Leave it to Candlehead to get cupcakes and idioms mixed up…'_ Taffyta thought dryly as she looked at Candlehead.

Her train of thought was interrupted by her friend talking again.

"Why don't you come over to my place and I'll make you some cupcakes? You can talk about stuff, and we can have a sleepover! It'll be great!" Taffyta nodded at the idea, and hugged her friend.

"Thanks, Candle! Your cupcakes are always good conversation-starters, aren't they? Let's go!" Taffyta exclaimed, momentarily forgetting her worries. Candlehead's cupcakes were always great. After all, it makes sense that the cupcake-themed racer would be good at making them, right?

Candlehead smiled and led the two-person march to her house, asking about what type of cupcakes she should make on the way there.

"What kind of cupcake do you want? You know what, never mind! I can surprise you, right? Oh, we're here!" She stopped herself and held the door open for Taffyta, who walked in.

"It's really nice of you to invite me to stay the night again, Candle." Taffyta said gratefully, as she walked in and sat on the cozy, mint-colored chair in the front room.

"No problem, Taff!" Candlehead waved it off, "I'll go start making the cupcakes, and you can just hang out over here!"

She walked out of the room, leaving Taffyta alone with her thoughts.

'_What's the best way to approach someone that was my number-one enemy only weeks ago?_' She mused, resting her elbows on her legs and her head on her hands as she sat. She imagined scenes of how to approach in her head.

'_I could ask her today and think of a meeting spot for tomorrow so that I don't have to go right up to her door like Rancis did….No, no, I should ask her tomorrow right after the races…there'll be too many people around so there's less of a chance she'll say no...Yeah, that's it! That's it! That's what I need to do!'_ Taffyta stood up from the chair and did a fist pump.

'_I can do this! I'm getting back in the game, and I play to win! The goal: a clean slate!'_ She thought with determination. She let out a happy sigh and fell back into the chair. She was confident once more.

**(POV Shift)**

Candlehead hummed as she gathered the ingredients for the cupcakes she would be surprising Taffyta with: Strawberry cupcakes. Of course, she knew that Taffyta loved strawberries, and she had made these for her many times, but they remained Taffyta's favorite, so they were the go-to cupcakes for when Taffyta was coming over.

She was in the kitchen, and had successfully gathered all of the tools she would need for the cupcakes, and the only ingredient she was missing was the stick of butter.

She pushed her pigtails back a bit further and washed her hands before strolling over to the fridge and pulling out the needed butter.

She let her mind wander as she completed the near memorized task of preparing these cupcakes on autopilot.

'_I heard Taffyta's whole conversation with Rancis. The entire thing. But when I asked, she changed the subject. She didn't know that I heard it, so that means she doesn't want me to know about it.'_ Her candle lit up just a bit brighter as she processed this bit of information.

'_I'm not a stupid as they think…I might be a bit of an airhead, and sure, I don't have the highest IQ or anything like that, but that doesn't mean I can't understand that something bad is happening.'_ She blended the strawberries until they were pureed, then mixed them in with the milk and vanilla extract in the smallest bowl.

'_I wonder if they even consider asking me a serious question. They never have before, ever. I bet they all think that I'm in la-la land all day everyday, but that's not true__,__ mostly. I have my moments, maybe once or twice a day. I can be serious if it's really important. Either way, you'd think they'd mention to me that something important was going on.'_ She took out her frustrations on the batter she was mixing, since she had already finished making the first one.

The final mixture, with all of the eggs, butter, flour, baking powder, salt, and the strawberry mixture from earlier was soon in the bowl. She continued to mix it, still thinking.

'_And the reason why they think I'm so stupid? The day the game was plugged in, I got so nervous about talking to all of my competitors that I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. They thought that was funny, so I did a few more times to humor them. Then they started to expect it from me, so what was I to do but go along with it? I know I'm not the smartest, but, I'm definitely not the dumbest. That award should be going to Swizzle.'_ She giggled at the thought, just as she finished mixing the batter and pouring it into the cupcake tin she had set out. It was already greased.

She set it in the oven and set the timer for about twenty-five minutes.

She would be using some of that time to prepare the special frosting. She had already made it, but she needed to thaw it and mix it some more to make it easier to pour into the frosting bag she had set out.

Humming once again, she did just that. Baking could always get her in a good mood. Now, she had to wait about five minutes for the cupcakes to be finished, and she could put them aside to cool. She wondered what Taffyta was doing in the front room, but decided against going and checking since she didn't want to come back in there empty-handed.

She quietly waited out the last few minutes before pulling on some oven mitts and taking the hot cupcakes out. She passed the waiting time daydreaming about being smarter than the other racers and impressing them. And maybe daydreaming about some fire-breathing unicorns as well.

She then had to wait even _more_ for them to cool off, but she did it successfully, and soon she had a big batch of frosted strawberry cupcakes. She walked into the front room.

"They're done!" Taffyta exclaimed, leaping out of the seat. She ran up and grabbed one off the tray. "Strawberry! Yes! Thanks, Candle!" Taffyta hugged Candlehead and quickly took a bite of her cupcake.

Candlehead set the tray down on a little table in the front room, taking a cupcake for herself.

"So, anything you wanna talk about?" She asked curiously. She was really hoping that her friend would choose to tell her about what was up with Rancis and her, and what Vanellope had to do with any of it.

To her immense disappointment, Taffyta shook her head no. "Not really," She said between mouthfuls of her cupcake. "Me and Rancis were just talking about something on the bridge, it's nothing you need to worry about. Anything new with you?"

Candlehead frowned and tried to think of an excuse to go outside and take a walk.

"I have a headache, I'm gonna go walk around and see if fresh air helps. Maybe it's from having my helmet on all day and not taking it off…it is a little hot. Do you mind if I go do that? You could just stay in here and watch the cupcakes." She said casually, pulling off her precious helmet for the sake of an excuse. She would have to keep it off for a while until she was away from the house. Maybe she could just stare into the flame and get lost in a daze again. Then it would all be better when she snapped out of it. And maybe while she was there she could look for that fire-breathing unicorn she daydreamed about!

"Headache, huh? That stinks. I'll watch the house while you're out, sure." Taffyta nodded and set her cupcake down as Candlehead walked for her front door.

"I hope you feel better when you come back! We can do some sleepover stuff if you do!" Taffyta waved bye and Candlehead shut the door with a wave back.

She decided she'd walk to a little clearing in the forest. Lots of fresh air, quiet, all good things at the moment. Besides, all this thinking really was giving her a headache.

She headed off, with her destination set.

**(POV Shift)**

Vanellope had finished wrecking the car with Ralph and Zangeif, and though she wasn't really of much help when it came to the destruction, it was pretty fun.

She had to get back to her game a few hours before opening though, so she had to say her goodbyes and take off shortly after.

She gave one last wave to her tall friend as the tram pulled away from the outlet's entrance. "See you tomorrow, right Stinky?" She called back to him.

"Of course, Sugar-snot." He scoffed teasingly, and gave a light wave back. The tram pulled away and soon he was out of view.

'_I wonder how I should pass the time until opening hours…Asking one of the racers to hang out is a legitimate option now, but I think instead I'll check up on some of my old hangouts. Just to be sure nobody else knows about the mountain.'_ With her plan in mind, she hopped off the tram and set off towards the mountain.

Just as she was going past the clearing, something caught her eye. Who was in the middle of the clearing? And, more importantly, why were they alone?

She moved in to get a closer look, and saw that it was Candlehead. She was staring into the flame on her candle, completely oblivious to Vanellope approaching behind her.

Vanellope coughed and cleared her throat, trying to get her attention. Nothing.

Rolling her eyes, she tapped Candlehead's shoulder, then shook it, and jolted her out of her flame-induced reverie.

"I was wondering when you'd look up." Vanellope remarked sarcastically, and took a seat next to Candlehead on the ground.

"Sorry. I was just looking at my candle." Candlehead explained sheepishly, strapping her helmet back onto her head.

"I could see that." Vanellope laughed, "But I'm wondering what you were doing out here alone. Aren't you usually with Taffyta or someone else?"

Candlehead smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'm just relaxing out here. This has always been where we play and hang out, I'm just here alone 'cause I wanted to look at my candle and it's quiet. I may or may not have also been looking for a unicorn."

Vanellope grinned back, then looked out at the clearing. They were both sitting on a hill overlooking it, at the moment. "Yeah, I know you guys all liked to hang out here…it…it sounds weird, but…I used to watch." She continued looking at the clearing, remembering days where she would sit up in a tree and just watch as all of the racers had fun down there. Meanwhile, she'd be there, watching quietly and wishing she could go do the same. Once they left, she'd retreat back to a deeper part of the woods.

Candlehead raised an eyebrow at this. "So…you used to just, sit and watch us play? That…that sounds sad."

Vanellope shrugged, but kept looking at the clearing and reminiscing. "I got over it."

"Really?" Candlehead asked, attempting to turn Vanellope around by grabbing her shoulder. "You really mean to tell me that that went on and on and on for years and then you just, _got over it?_" She asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah. What was I supposed to do, hold a grudge? If everything was Tur-butt's fault, I could hardly be mad at you anymore." Vanellope defended, shrugging once again. "Anyways, why did you feel the need to come out here to look at your candle?"

"I'm thinking…" Candlehead started, looking to the side. "Something important is going on right now, and Taff and Rancis and everyone think I'm too dumb to understand that. I heard them talking about it earlier, and I'm pretty sure you're involved too, somehow, and it's confusing me. They won't tell me anything about it, so, I came out here to think about what it might be." She finished quietly.

"Sooo….to sum it up, you're upset because they all treat you like a baby." Vanellope clarified. Candlehead nodded.

"Well, I mean, no offense, but you act the part. Why?" Vanellope queried, tilting her head to the side.

"Because it's what they expect." Candlehead explained, throwing her hands to the side in a gesture of helplessness. "When I first met them, I was nervous, so I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which was really dumb. By the time I was comfortable around them, they all thought I had the brains of a rock. I think I _at least_ have the brains of a watermelon, but a rock is just insulting. Wait, did I just insult myself too?"

"First impressions. Well, you're not the only one who had crappy ones, I guess. If it's any comfort to you, I'm pretty sure the lot of you were convinced that I was some vicious criminal, not just a normal one…Which usually isn't the sort of thing one would want to be compared to, but you know what? I loved every second of it.." Vanellope let out a short laugh, and she had a mental flashback to her first-ever encounter with a few of the racers.

**(Flashback)**

Vanellope groaned as she neared the castle again. So far she hated the place, but where else could she go? She needed someone to give her a map, or something, and she was pretty sure she had seen a huge one when she spawned in there.

At least, before she got chased out by that puffy-pants-wearing loser. King Dandy, or whatever? Like she cared what his name was.

'_What was his problem, anyways? Didn't he know that it was rude to shout things like that at strangers? And a kid, no less. I mean, seriously? Vermin? Glitch, virus, evil, brat? Those were not nice words, even if I wasn't quite sure what a few of them meant.' _She thought dryly_. 'Other people react to me like that, too. I went into the place where the town was being built, once, and then that weird thing happened and they started running away from me. A few of them threw rocks. And I heard these kids talking about what they would do if they found me…It was awful. They haven't even met me and they were declaring war on me. They hate me and I don't even know why. That's just cold.'_

A blue wave of code washed over her as her coding separated, and she blinked and shook her head as it ended.

'_Oh, speaking of that weird thing, there it is now. I should probably also get that looked at. Maybe they've got a doctor or something in town.' _She sighed as this came to mind, but continued towards the castle.

'_Come to think of it, he said that he'd throw me in jail if he saw me again…and that every other person in the town would too…If they're all such jerks, then I'll have to steal the map…and the idea of seeing a doctor or something is out the window. Since I won't be coming to town very often…I'll take a few other supplies. I'm pretty sure there's currency….. but I don't have any and I'm an outlaw anyways, so I guess I'll just steal the stuff. No problem. If they can treat me like this for no reason, then I won't even feel bad about stealing from them.' _Vanellope decided, having made up her mind. As of today, they would have a reason to make her an outlaw.

She pulled her hoodie up over her head, and walked right past the cops into the town.

"Idiots…" She snickered under her breath_._ They didn't hear.

Walking through town, she evaluated the half-finished buildings and shops that seemed to be just little carts. Perfect, the town was still in development. She could take whatever she needed easily, provided she didn't run out of space. Which, thanks to her hidden stash right outside of town, would be no problem. If she made a few trips, she could be in and out of this town full of idiots in no time.

As she walked past a small merchant-style shop cart, she stealthily reached out and grabbed some thick licorice rope and stuck it in her pocket. The shopkeeper didn't notice, due to her height and the fact that she did this all while he was turned around and talking to someone on a candy phone.

Glancing side to side to make sure nobody was looking, she also nabbed scissors and a wrench.

With this, she had a pretty full load, so she began to walk out of town. Once again, the morons guarding the gate let her right through. She stashed the tools under a gumdrop, next to a tree that stood a little ways apart from the forest, making it easy to locate.

She walked back into town once the stolen goods were no longer in her pocket or being carried by her.

She saw a girl wearing too much pink(who she later came to identify as Taffyta, but right then she was just pink girl) for her taste working on a house, which was, -_shocker_- pink.

She was complaining to her friend about something, and then she happened to look over at Vanellope. She waved. To avoid suspicion, Vanellope waved back, and began to quickly walk off in the direction of the castle. Time to grab that map. And maybe, humiliate a certain king in the process.

She stopped and a wicked grin came across her face. '_That's the ticket! I'm gonna really make that guy wish he'd never been mean to me!' _She thought, and a devious plan quickly came to mind. She'd lure him out, and in front of the whole town, pants him. In fact, maybe she could pants the whole town.

She grinned once more. They all had this coming.

Strolling casually, as if she was just out for a walk, she went into the castle. The guards didn't find her, though it was pretty tricky to navigate them. What she ended up doing was climbing through a window that some numbskull left open.

She went into the main lobby of the castle, and spotted the map she had seen hung on a wall in one of the corridors. She walked up to it, and unpinned it from the wall. Folding the map of the whole game, she made it small enough to fit in her pocket, and stuffed it in there just as that weird king whats-his-face came walking down the hall.

"Hey! What're you doing, brat? That's important! And it's property of the castle!" He shouted, beginning to run towards her.

"Well it's mi-ine now, loser!" She shouted back, just as that weird blue code thing happened again. This time she ended up moving further away from the king, who was still rapidly approaching.

"_Gliiitch!_ I'll catch you!" He roared, running towards her with his arms forward to grab her.

"Time to run!" Vanellope yelped, and turned tail to run into the throne room.

Uh-oh. She forgot about the guards…where could she go?

Her eyes darted to the window.

"Let's hope this works!" She ran right through it, since, once again, it was open. She was so lucky today it was unbelievable. Her hood came off her head as she fell, but she did the teleport thing once more when she was just inches away from the ground. It actually saved her.

On her feet, she saw the king running toward the front door, so she ran back for the construction zone with the other kids.

"Hi! Why're you running?" The pink girl asked innocently.

"Huh, I guess my description's not out yet. In that case, I'm freed up to do _this!_" Vanellope quickly darted behind the girl, and shouted, "Look, guards! It's the kid who broke into the castle! Right here!" Instantly, the pink kid was mobbed with guards, townspeople, and even some of the shopkeepers.

Vanellope used the diversion to grab a few more supplies, but soon enough, king whatever-his-name-is came out and told them what she actually looked like.

She grinned sheepishly at the mob of angry people in front of her. "Oh, would ya look at the time? I hate to come and go, but I gotta split! Before that…" She charged the crowd, and located the king near the front of it. She quickly pulled his pants down, and laughed when she noticed that they had little red and white racecars on them.

"Hahaha! Nice undies, oh _wise leader!_ What are you, _five_?" She cackled, and ran out of the way of his fist. She raced to the other humanoid characters, and made short work of embarrassing them as well.

The rage with which the pink girl glared at her was unbelievable. Both of them knew that they were to become mortal enemies, but at the moment, Vanellope was having too much fun laughing at her to realize it.

Every single human person there was glaring at her, and pulling up their pants. The others were glaring too. A few were making fists at her, then smacking them into their palms.

Vanellope just grinned and looked at all of them. She began to do that weird thing where she burst into code temporarily, right there.

All of a sudden, almost the entire crowd recoiled.

She just laughed.

"What, you're all scared of me? I already know you hate me but this is surprising. Yeah, that's right….I heard you other kids talking, all about what you'd do when you found me…That was some pretty nasty stuff. Where's that confidence now? Are you afraid to carry out your plans? What's the deal with you all anyways? You hadn't met me _once,_ and you were all lightin' your torches and gathering a mob, ready to try and take me down. What's the deal with that? You chase me out of towns and everything!" She shouted, for the whole crowd to hear. Nobody even faltered. All of them were still fearful or furious, not one person cared.

"We hate you because you're a mistake! That thing you just did, was glitching!" Pink girl shouted. Vanellope glared at her, but pink girl continued. "You're the glitch, get the picture? Everybody hates you."

It stung, it stung so badly…but she was in the middle of something, so she couldn't take the time to show sadness. She had to shoot back or they'd think she was weak.

"Well...I hate all of you too!" She yelled into the crowd, "I hate all of you! You can't just hate a person for something that isn't their fault, but you do, and I hate all of you right back, you hear me?!" She turned tail and ran out of the town, hopping a fence and grabbing the stuff from her stash quickly.

She ran deeper into the forest than they would follow, and leaned up against a mountain for support, but fell through it into a cavern. She decided it was base, and sat in there processing all of the things she had learned that day.

She was a criminal, as of now. And she was going to have fun with it. She could think about everything else later.

After all, it seemed she would have plenty of time to be alone.

**(Flashback end)**

Vanellope smiled at the thought of what she did that day. It was sad in some parts, yes, but it was a good memory. She learned the best way to survive, and still have fun. Even if her fun wasn't the most desired kind.

She glanced back at Candlehead, who was apparently brooding.

"It wasn't very nice of all of us to make assumptions about you like that and talk behind your back before we even met you…we deserved it." Candlehead sulked, shoulders slumped.

"Well, it happened a while ago, and I'd like to say that I got even anyways. We had a pretty difficult time approaching each other, though." Vanellope waved it off, though Candlehead looked like she had just heard something extremely important. She sat in a daze for a little bit.

Soon Candlehead snapped out of it and her candle flared up suddenly. "I think I figured out what Taff and Rancis were talking about…and, how you were involved! Taffyta is afraid to talk to you, and Rancis was trying to talk her into it…Yeah, I figured it out! She wants to make _second_ impressions! Or, uh, new first ones, or something. Right? I think it is, but I don't know…now I'm confused again." She finished weakly, now rethinking it.

It made a bit of sense to Vanellope, though. "Hah, well, that's ironic. It does sorta make sense though. Tell me, did Rancis convince her to do it?"

"Yeah. She has to do it by tomorrow, 'cause she said she would and Rancis said he'd hold her to it." Candlehead nodded.

"Great! So, I'll just have to take it easy on her. Are you done thinking now?" Vanellope stood up, and held out a hand to help Candlehead up too. Candle accepted it and she pulled her up.

"Yep! Thank you!" Candlehead grinned, and then unexpectedly pulled Vanellope into a hug.

"Err…you're welcome..?" Vanellope replied uncertainly, awkwardly half-returning the hug.

"See you at the races tomorrow!" Candlehead exclaimed, then released Vanellope and skipped off happily, though she accidentally set a tree on fire with her helmet.

Vanellope hastily put it out, and breathed a sigh of relief when it didn't spread.

"Well, that was awkward…I guess that means we're friends now, aren't we? Maybe this won't be as hard as I thought.." She smiled to herself.

"Yeah, I'm gonna be friends with all the racers, at some point or another. Two down, twelve to go!" She exclaimed to nobody in particular. With this in mind, she headed to the mountain and cheerfully checked on all of her old hidey holes before returning to the castle. She did grab one thing from the mountain, though.

**(Breakline/Transition)**

Vanellope was in her room looking at what she had just pinned to her wall with a few colorful pins.

It was the map.

The map showed every major location in the game, and it still had creases from where she had folded it.

"This map was part of my bad first impressions...but now that it's up here, it's because of better second ones. I'm excited but nervous for tomorrow." She said aloud, gazing at the map.

She turned around and got dressed in her pajamas, before hopping into her bed.

"So it's a good idea to get some sleep for then. After all, the arcade opens early tomorrow." She yawned in the middle of her sentence, and soon dozed off into sleep. Tomorrow would be interesting, of that much she could be sure.

**AN: So, that flashback was my idea of how the first face-to-face meeting between Vanellope and the racers could have gone…I realize that I had way too much fun writing that little bit…but, hey, I couldn't resist pantsing Turbo in the story. And I figured, you know, that was a good opportunity****.**** Anyways, thanks for reading!**


	4. Tutorial Level

**AN: So, I watched the deleted scenes for Wreck-it Ralph (I loved those so much), and legitimately I started laughing every time I tried to have a friendly conversation between Vanellope and Taffyta…but I finished anyways. **

"The arcade will be opening in five minutes! Get to your positions in your games!" The call sounded, and Taffyta jolted awake.

'_Crap!'_

She threw Candlehead's guest room covers aside and scrambled to get into her outfit and racing gear.

"Agh, I _always_ wake up late…." She grumbled to herself as she pulled her jacket on. She left her pajamas by the bed covers, grabbed her helmet, and rushed out the door.

Candlehead was already at the starting line, along with the seven other racers besides her that had made it onto the roster.

"Why didn't you wake me up when the half-hour alarm sounded, Candle?" She whined, though she got into her kart and prepared it as she spoke.

"Huh? Oh, I forgot you were in my house! Sorry, Taff. At least you made it on time, right?" She apologized sheepishly, before turning her attention to the screen again. It was two minutes to opening time, provided Litwak wasn't late.

"Hey, I think I see Litwak's car pulling in." Someone said aloud, and the other racers murmured in agreement, some craning their necks to get a better view out the screen.

Taffyta watched the old man unlock the door with a click, and walk into the arcade. He flipped the sign on the door, and the arcade was open for business.

It would take a little for the kids to come, but at least one or two would be here within the next half-hour.

All of the racers would stay in position until then.

**(Breakline/Transition) **

"All clear!" The arcade spurred into after-hours mode as soon as this call was heard.

Taffyta heard the cue as well, and hopped out of that kart, taking a nervous breath.

'_Here goes nothing…'_ She thought to herself as she walked towards Vanellope. '_No hesitations.'_

"Hey, Vanellope." She started, waiting for a response from her.

"Yeah?" Vanellope lifted her head from where she was checking her kart for damage, and turned her attention to Taffyta.

"Well, I was wondering if you might want to hang out sometime today." Taffyta finished casually, though on the inside she was practically biting her fingernails with nervousness.

The jaws of several of the racers dropped, shocked at the new development. They stared at the two having the conversation with sudden interest.

Taffyta shot an irritated glance at Minty, who was whispering something quickly to Adorabeezle, who gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

"Mind your own business…" She mouthed quickly to the two girls, who scattered after seeing the death glare Taffyta was giving them.

She returned her attention to Vanellope.

"Yeah, sure. You want to hang at the castle?" Vanellope motioned towards the mentioned building with a tilt of her head. "No offense to anyone, but the other racers kinda look like they're about ready to crowd the both of us….*Cough cough_ Juby_*." Jubileena shot up from a nearby gumdrop and ran. Vanellope smirked.

"I _knew_ she was over there." She laughed, then motioned for Taffyta to follow her. "Well, come on then. We don't have all day, do we?" She turned and headed for the castle at a brisk pace.

When the two finally got there, Vanellope wasted no time in getting lost...in her own castle.

"Hmm, I coulda sworn that the room was down this hallway…." She muttered under her breath, studying the walls.

"Wait," Taffyta interjected. "You mean you don't even know your way around your own building?" She asked incredulously, looking around the hallway for herself.

"To be fair, I didn't spend much time familiarizing myself with the place after I got it back…and everything is the same color….pink. I'd like to repaint at least some parts so it's not as confusing, but I have to wait for Smelly to finish construction on the extra apartments and stuff in his game. He promised to help me after that. Anyways, I guess we'll just head to my room instead. I at least know how to get _there._" Vanellope explained sheepishly, before unexpectedly grabbing her visitor's hand and glitching the both of them to the hallway nearer to her room.

"That's way faster than running around the hallways all day, right?" She asked, pointing to the door that would lead to what Taffyta assumed was Vanellope's room.

"Yep. So, this is your room? Looks like you already repainted in here. I take it this is your favorite color?" Taffyta asked as she was led through the door. She tried to keep her mind off of what had just occurred.

'_You know, she seems perfectly comfortable when she does that…but now that I just did it, it's actually really uncomfortable...just like that time before...Like an electric shock…how does she not react at all?'_ Taffyta thought, stealing a glance at the kid in front of her. Maybe she was immune, or something.

Yeah, that was probably it. It probably felt different to be the source. After all, you can't get shocked by your own electricity, probably.

"Yeah, I repainted it because Ralph wouldn't let me stay at his brick pile for more than a week 'cause his house wasn't done and I didn't want to sleep in a room that reminded me too much of the rest of the castle. My initial option was to paint it brown, orange and white to remind me of…" Vanellope bit her tongue, as if she had just almost slipped up and said something that was supposed to be a secret, then continued, "..a place I used to go to a lot, but I didn't want to take Rancis' color scheme." She shrugged it off, and pointed to her hoodie, "So, instead of that, I went with my favorite color."

"Wait, why were you staying with your friend for a week? And why didn't you want the room to remind you of the castle if you're _in_ the castle?" Taffyta raised an eyebrow curiously.

Vanellope perked up a bit at the idea, and blinked, then exhaled loudly. "W-e-ll, I'm trying to think of the best way to go about this…I was uh, kinda nervous…that, you guys...might, sorta attack me or something….I don't know. It was uncalled for on my part to think something like that, but, can you blame me? And, sometimes I'll be kinda confused when I first wake up, and if the first thing I saw was something that I've considered to be a hostile environment for pretty much my whole life…You get the picture, right? I know everything is different and stuff now, but….The fact remains that you guys have been trying to capture, and even kill me for most of my life up 'till this point. I'm having trouble just, you know…making friends with you guys."

Vanellope turned her head and looked at the ground to her right, a look of something akin to guilt crossing her face. "I'm sorry if it seems like I'm holding a grudge. I swear; I _have_ forgiven you. I just have trust issues."

Taffyta digested this information, and began to slowly shake her head.

"No, it's our fault. It's not trust issues; it's the fact that we were all so mean. If you had trust issues, you wouldn't have made friends with Ralph so easily, or anyone else outside the game." Taffyta reasoned, edging towards Vanellope hesitantly.

"Hey, you weren't the only ones being mean, you know. Remember the first time I met you? I tried to get you thrown in jail and mobbed by people who thought you were me." Vanellope giggled, and while Taffyta had never thought so in the past, she realized that that incident _was_ kind of funny, now that she knew it was justified.

"True…" She stifled a laugh of her own. "And then, what about all those other times you pranked us? The pudding poop on the porches, gum in the kart engines, defacing the leaderboard with mustaches and monocles…Where'd you even get the ideas for some of that stuff? You pulled who knows how many of those on us…" She trailed off.

"And then some." Vanellope smirked. Taffyta looked at her incredulously. "I can name _at least_ 7 times where I framed Gloyd and got away with it. He did end up pulling more than me, though." Vanellope explained with a roll of her eyes. "But do you really think Gloyd could have pulled off the '_Shower Explosion Incident'_? No way, that was all me."

Taffyta's jaw dropped. "Aww, man! Do you have any idea how much I told Gloyd off for that?"

"I'm assuming quite a bit…anyways, the point is, I think I got even. Right?" Vanellope asked, looking to Taffyta curiously for an answer after her smirk died down.

Taffyta was a bit more comfortable by that point, but when the question was posed, it was a no brainer. She didn't agree. They weren't 'even', not even close.

A few immature pranks hardly measured up to bullying and torture, as well as what was essentially banishment, and if Vanellope wanted her opinion, she'd get that one. Lying was not a good thing, she didn't want to do that.

"…I think you're going to have to prank us, many, many more times before we're even remotely close to 'even'." She said in reply, looking Vanellope in the eye to see how she would react.

Confusion flooded her eyes. "But..? We were both being pretty awful to one and other, right? I'm as much at fault as you guys, are, maybe more."

"Well, there's a difference between what you were doing and what we were doing…You never, physically, hurt anybody with your pranks…they were just little setbacks. What we did…we really were trying to hurt you. And we did. We all did that, and now that we've managed to notice, we all want to take it all back. I want to take it all back. But that's just not going to happen overnight." Taffyta hung her head and her shoulders slumped a bit. Her usual confidence was slipping off somewhere.

'_Pull it together! I'm pathetic!'_ She growled to herself mentally, and tried to strengthen her resolve to look up again.

She did, but Vanellope wasn't glaring as she expected. Now Taffyta was the one confused.

"But you did all that nasty stuff 'cause Turbo was in charge, right?" Vanellope pressed, trying to figure out why Taffyta was acting the way she was.

"But, that's just the thing. Imagine, just minding your own business, when all of a sudden, some stranger comes along and invades your consciousness, shuts you down for an hour or so while he messes about in the code room, walking right past you to do so. Then waking up and not knowing any of that, trusting the stranger as a _friend_ a leader, someone to _look up to__._ He just waltzed on into the game and played every single one of us like a violin. And we were none the wiser. None of us were. We thought it was normal. But, he rarely flat out _told us_ to do anything to you. We came at you on our own, because he lied and made rumors, and filled us with stupid ideas…we were all terrible people, and we were being mean to you- and a lot of other people, actually, all the time…why?" Taffyta was probably about to make a trench, the way she was pacing.

Vanellope interrupted her little session. "Taffyta. Listen. Right now." The seriousness in her tone of voice let Taffyta know that Vanellope wasn't joking around. She stopped talking.

"It doesn't matter _how_ you feel about all of that. You know why? Because, judging from the way you were just pacing and talking about it, nothing I tell you will make you feel any different. You feel guilt. Maybe you will always regret your actions. Maybe you _will _always feel bad about it. But don't just _dwell_ _on it_. Because you know what? I might not have done any of 'em, but I thought up some pretty _nasty_ things, for all of you lot. Either way, feeling all guilty and mopey and stuff isn't gettin' anything done, Taff. You're beating a dead horse. Crying over spilled milk, and all that." Vanellope told her sternly, using her best no-nonsense voice. Her tone softened after. "Let's just be friends, okay? It's as simple as that. Deal?" She stuck a hand out and waited for Taffyta to shake it.

Taffyta looked from the outstretched hand, to Vanellope's expression, and took the hand. "Deal."

"Yeah! That's the spirit! C'mon, do you want to go do something? We could go and.." Vanellope immediately lit up with excitement, and began talking about what kind of stuff they could do while they were hanging out.

Taffyta just looked in wonderment. '_She more mature than I am…Until she gets excited….'_ She thought dryly, but smiled.

That was so much easier than it should have been. It probably didn't even count, as Taffyta didn't think they were friends just yet, that was more like a truce.

Not that she was complaining. A truce was better than nothing, right?

**(POV shift)**

Vanellope glanced over at Taffyta. Thank gumdrops _that _was over. She hated to have to use the serious tone with anybody, but still, she knew there was no way Taffyta would've listened to a word she said if she hadn't.

She figured that little rant was fairly effective.

Just as she was in the middle of spouting off suggestions of what to do and thinking about other things, a loud knock came on the door.

Louder than Sarge's, but at the same time, it didn't seem intentional…She immediately straightened as she realized that she hadn't told Ralph that she wouldn't be visiting today. She always checked up on his progress on building after closing time and pestered him about hurrying up so they could play. She hadn't skipped it a single day before. Usually he was pretty relaxed when it came to schedules, since she would come late to a few things, sometimes even hours late, but not once was she late to the daily routine of pestering him after closing, she did it even if she only had a few minutes to. It was practically mandatory, not that either of the friends minded in the least.

'_Well, looks like this is going to be interesting.'_ She thought dryly as she headed towards the door, Taffyta following behind.

Vanellope was pretty sure that Ralph didn't really like the other racers, though, he had recently made an exception with Rancis, only after Vanellope convinced him that Rancis was nice.

She shrugged, there wasn't much she could do now.

'_Please, Ralph...just, try to get along.'_ She pleaded silently as she opened the door.

**(POV shift)**

Rancis idly threw a ball at the tree, and caught it as it bounced back. Behind him, he could hear Gloyd and Swizzle, the two other boys in _Sugar Rush._

"So, what game are we playing now? Dodgeball?" He asked, tossing the ball to Swizzle, who expertly caught it and spun it on a finger. He dropped the ball and it rolled back to Rancis' feet.

"Nah, we did that yesterday." Gloyd explained, then exchanged glances with Swizzle.

"Uh, speaking of which…..What happened yesterday?!" Gloyd blurted out quickly.

"Yeah! We heard you were hanging out with the Pres.!" Swizzle chimed in.

Rancis rolled his eyes. He had been asked this a few times, and at this point he thought the racers were just being nosy.

"We tied in a one V one race, and got root beer after. It was fun." He said simply, explaining it in as few words as possible. He had explained the same thing quite a few times.

"No, I want to know what was up with the Pres.!" Swizzle exclaimed. "Did you find out if any of the rumors were true or what, man?"

Rancis narrowed his eyes. "No. They aren't."

Swizzle almost looked disappointed. "Aww, none of em?" Rancis shook his head no, growing more agitated with Swizzle.

Swizzle then started thinking harder to try and prove at least one to be true. "How do you know she wasn't faking it? Oh, what if she's still doing that form disguise thing! What if it's not even a she, dude?" He whispered the last bit suspiciously.

"Swizz! She's a girl! No 'form disguise', no creepy bits about it! Just, stop!" Rancis shouted, glaring at this point.

"Whoa, I've never seen you get that worked up about it. Swizz was just pointing something out, it doesn't mean it's true." Gloyd tried to defuse the situation. No use.

Swizzle glared back. "Yeah, right! I bet she used some sorta mind control to make you think that. How do we know that's not what happened? She might be in charge of us, but I don't trust her, if it even _is_ a her."

"_She_ didn't!" Rancis defended vehemently.

"That's taking it a bit far, Swizz…" Gloyd said nervously, not sure how to prevent a fight from breaking out between his friends. Right now he was leaning towards taking Rancis' side, but he tried to stay neutral.

Rancis didn't care what kind of fight broke out, because he was trying to prevent exactly this scenario in the first place.

"It's not taking it a bit far, it's being smart." Swizz declared stubbornly.

It was then that both of the other boys realized it would be no use to reason with Swizzle. Once he got an idea in his head, it would stay there, until proven wrong or carried out.

'_Honestly, this guy is dumber than Candle.'_ Rancis thought to himself, glaring at the other boy.

"Think what you will, but you're wrong. And if you try to convince me you aren't, it won't work." Rancis warned, keeping his eyes narrowed. He bent down and picked up the ball, he needed something to occupy his hands so that his friends wouldn't see them clenching angrily.

Gloyd just facepalmed. "Can't you two just play ball? Kickball, soccer...are you even paying attention to me?...…..Once I ate my hat. Yeah, they definitely aren't listening.."

"Liar. Just watch, Taff confronted her today, and when she comes back, she'll tell you I'm right. Right Gloyd?" Swizzle and Rancis both turned to face the pumpkin-themed boy as this was said.

Gloyd groaned and let out a frustrated huff. "Oh, so now you'll listen to me…" He grumbled, "You two have fun. Swizz, I believe Rancis, but that's just me. Think what you want. But if you two keep fighting, I'm gonna prank you three times as hard. And it'll be even worse than the '_Shower Explosion Incident'_ which, I keep telling you, wasn't even me."

"That was totally you! There's no way that was the g-" The ball Rancis was holding slammed into Swizzle before he could finish his sentence.

"Why don't we just play dodgeball two days in a row?" Rancis suggested, putting his hands in his pockets and trying to calm down.

"Cheap shot, _cheap shot…_but, I'll respect that." Swizzle mumbled begrudgingly as he stood up. "No hard feelings?"

"I guess…" Rancis agreed half-heartedly.

'_Why do I have a feeling that this argument will pop back up later?'_ He groaned inwardly at the thought of having to do this again. He knew Swizz hadn't really changed his mind, he just respected Rancis enough not to say it anymore in front of him. Better than nothing.

The boys continued with their game of ball, though Rancis and Swizzle both seemed to aim for one and other more than they'd like to admit.

**(POV shift)**

"Vanellope! I was worried about you, you little guttersnipe!" Ralph had initially looked panicked when the door opened, but he relaxed when he looked down and saw his friend. He scooped her up with just one large hand and held her to his chest in an awkward hug that was too big for Vanellope to actually fit in.

She seemed to love it anyways.

"Aww, big ole' Ralphie got worried about me?" She teased, sliding out of his hug and onto his shoulder with a grin.

Ralph rolled his eyes, and prepared for a nice little teasing session.

"The big, strong bad guy, worrying himself over a little kid! Imagine that! Quite a tough guy, huh?" She laughed, messing with his hair. He didn't even care, as long as she was alright.

"Ha ha. You really had me worried there, where were you? I thought you'd at least stop by like you usually do." He asked curiously, cocking an eyebrow at his smaller friend.

"Well, Taffyta asked if she could hang out with me today, so she came over. She's actually to your left, right now." Vanellope motioned to Ralph's side, and he saw the other kid that he had failed to notice.

He was tempted, really tempted, to shout and chase her off again, but…the poor kid was already shaking, and it just reminded him of his already bad image. She was scared of him, no surprise there. Lots of people were.

He ran an oversized hand through his hair and grudgingly decided to let it slide. He only hoped that this kid wouldn't do anything to hurt Vanellope again, or boy, would she get it.

"Uh, I didn't see you there…Hi, I guess." He greeted awkwardly. She just remained frozen in the same place. After a few seconds she nervously waved back.

Ralph was _so_ glad Vanellope wasn't watching and seeing how scared of him all of the other kids were, and instead was looking at the ceiling as she apparently recalled something.

He pulled his tiny friend off his shoulder and mussed her hair affectionately, she grinned back up at him.

"I guess there's not much to worry about then…I'll go bother Felix and the Sarge." He said, glancing between Taffyta and Vanellope as he said 'not much to worry about'.

"A round of catch before you go?" Vanellope asked, grinning deviously.

Ralph grinned back. "Sure thing, kiddo." He quickly tossed her into the air, and she glitched to the air down the hall. He ran down the hallway and dove to catch her, as both laughed at the stupidity of their game.

"Even though I know where you came up with that from, I'll never guess why you _like_ doing it." Ralph laughed, picking himself up and letting Vanellope off of him.

"It's like a trust exercise, except I don't have to do much. Sides' falling is kinda fun." She snickered.

"Yeah, for you.." he grumbled in a pretend grumpy voice, "I think I have enough of falling as it is..."

"Oh, whatever. You like this game too, admit it. It's not like you have to do the falling." Vanellope gave him a playful punch to the base of his leg, which he returned, though he really wasn't punching her as much as tapping her with his fist.

"I should get going, then. See you later?" He asked, and was answered with a quick nod.

"Yeah! Top shelf! I'll see you tomorrow, that's a promise!" Vanellope declared, while Ralph rolled his eyes and held out a fist. She fist-bumped with him and he lumbered out the door.

He smiled and headed to his own game, hoping Taffyta wouldn't make the wrong choices and do anything to make his friend upset.

**(POV shift)**

Taffyta wondered how on earth Vanellope could _ever _feel comfortable around someone so huge and scary.

But, she had just seen with her own eyes that Vanellope pretty much trusted the big wrecker with her life, more or less.

When he threw her into the air, it reminded Taffyta of a giant grizzly bear or something, playing with prey. How Vanellope could ever find a game like that fun, or feel so attached to someone so big and bad was beyond her.

It wasn't her place to say this to Vanellope though, and she wouldn't. Who she was friends with was her business.

"So, Taff, what do you usually do after closing?" Vanellope inquired, snapping Taffyta out of her reflections.

"I usually try and figure out who I'll be spending the night with first, since my house got destroyed by the bugs.." She explained, motioning towards the direction her house used to be.

"It did? Why didn't you tell me sooner, I woulda helped you start construction again." Apparently this was all news to Vanellope.

"You would?" Taffyta asked dubiously. "It takes a while to build a house, you know."

"Not if you have all of the racers helping out. And you can just bunk at the castle, there's plenty of space." Vanellope threw her arms out and motioned to all of the walls around the two of them, it was true that there was lots of space.

"Just one night, then. I like to mix it up." Taffyta agreed sheepishly, seeing as there wasn't much other choice.

"This is gonna be awesome! My first slumber party that isn't with Ralph! Not that those aren't awesome too, but... This is so exciting!" She exclaimed vigorously, jumping around the room and glitching with excitement from the very idea of it all.

"Huh, well, we should make it memorable then, I guess. What do you want to do first?" Taffyta held a hand out to the side as she asked, still watching Vanellope bounce off the walls with excitement.

Skidding to a stop where she was, Vanellope stopped running and bouncing for a second. "Umm…I don't actually…know what you do at sleepovers." She admitted quietly, dipping her head sheepishly.

"Really?" It was actually not that hard to see why, but it still surprised Taffyta. "We have to fix that! Since you aren't really into girly things…." Vanellope made a face at this, but stopped when Taffyta continued and said, "We won't be doing any of that stuff, but it limits our options. We could have a pillow fight, or play truth or dare, or hide and go seek, or maybe just stay up late…" Taffyta tried to think of more fun things to do at a sleepover.

"Can we prank somebody?" Vanellope asked, getting excited again. Her eyes seemed to emit their own type of mischief, it was clear she was itching to do _something_.

"Err, I guess we could.." Taffyta agreed awkwardly, before getting tackled by Vanellope with a short hug. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

"Let's go get Snow and Beezle! They're always fun! What do you think we should do first? I say we should do something like…." She lit up as an idea struck her. "We're gonna need something foamy, and sour candies, and then maybe something to tie things up with.."

"What are you thinking about doing?" Taffyta asked suspiciously.

"Tying them up in their sleep, getting foam over as much of my face as possible, waking them up by putting sour candy in their mouth and then pretending to have rabies, why?" came the innocent reply.

"Err…no offense, Vanellope but...this may be why you're having issues making friends with everyone again…" Taffyta commented awkwardly, almost doing one of those anime sweat drops on the spot.

"What?!" Vanellope's jaw dropped. "They're just pranks! What would this have to do with anything? It's a joke!"

"No offense meant, but people don't really like it when you tie them up and then pretend to have rabies…because they don't know you're pretending…" She explained, mildly confused as to how far behind on basic social protocols Vanellope was.

'_She was really out of the loop, wasn't she?'_ Taffyta thought privately. It was almost pathetic.

"Oh. Uh, I guess if that makes sense to you, then…" It was clear Vanellope still didn't get it, but at least she was willing to abandon the idea. "What do you suggest we do then?"

"Eh, I don't know. Truth or dare?" Taffyta suggested nonchalantly.

"What's that?" Vanellope piped up curiously.

Taffyta facepalmed. She was going to have to explain _so_ many things.

She had all night though, apparently. She should learn how to do things Vanellope's way as well, though. Both of them needed to learn, she guessed.

Vanellope had to learn how the racers did things, and Taffyta had to learn how and why Vanellope did things.

'_Kinda like a tutorial, I guess. I hope I at least learn a few important things.' _She thought dryly as she began to explain what truth or dare was.

**AN: And this has been chapter four! So, within the next few chapters, I'm going to try and do a checklist. Every time Vanellope has made friends with another one of the racers, It's going to be written down here. It's not really important, just how I'm going to keep track for myself, because there are too many racers for me to keep track mentally and I'd feel bad if I left some out.**

**So far we have:**

**Rancis and Candlehead (Taff still thinks it's more of a truce than a friendship)**

**Thanks for reading!**


	5. Level 1: The Sleepover

"Oooh. That makes sense, in a weird sort of way. You play the game, and then no matter what, if you pick dare, you have to do it, and if you pick truth, you have to answer the question, and honestly. Right? Sounds like a recipe for torture. Or an interesting interrogation method…" Vanellope mused, putting a hand to her chin thoughtfully. Taffyta had just spent about ten minutes getting the concept across to her.

"Yeah, well, that's how you play. Now, do you want to do that before we grab some sleeping bags, or do you want to play and then set up?" Taffyta queried, looking around and wondering what room they'd be sleeping in.

She looked at Vanellope expectantly, and was met with a sheepish grin. "This is gonna sound pretty dumb, but I don't have any sleeping bags. Just the stuff in my room is mine, everything else was already here. I didn't bother to get anything else."

"Why wouldn't you want to redecorate? I mean yeah, you're painting the place, but it's a bit empty, right?" Taffyta didn't even bother being surprised by the fact that Vanellope didn't have sleeping bags, it was a long shot anyways.

"Why? I have the stuff I need and if I have to pack up and move it it'll take longer, wasting time I need to use to…oooh. I'm...not going to have to move out in much of a hurry now, am I? Or maybe not at all…" Vanellope realized, and glanced around the castle again. "Well, either way, I guess it's good enough. Not my style, but I can get around to stylizing it later." She shrugged the idea off for the moment.

'_Man, this is interesting. She packs light because she's used to having a constant threat that she might get kicked out of home. I guess me and the other racers aren't the only ones taking our time to adjust to all of the changes.'_ Taffyta entertained the thought of what that would feel like, knowing that at any second the only place she could go to for comfort might be taken away. Yikes. She didn't have her house, but she could still go to any racer's house, whenever.

"Alright, we'll sleep in my room. I'll take the floor." Vanellope offered, heading back to her room and pulling some blankets from Ralph's game out of a chest and spreading them out on the floor.

Taffyta immediately got flustered. "Huh, oh, no, I'm the guest, I should, take the floor…"

"Calm down, Taff. It's not like I haven't slept on the floor before. Besides, I figured sleeping on the floor isn't really your thing, right?" Vanellope asked, laying down and sorting out the blankets on the floor to her own likings.

"Yeah, but…I don't want to kick you out of your bed either…"Taffyta went on awkwardly.

"Well too bad, 'cause I do." Vanellope teased, sticking her tongue out. "Let's pick a game to play or something, but can we save truth or dare for later? It seems more like something to do after lot of other people are asleep."

"Sure…how about we play…Blackjack?" Taffyta suggested earnestly, eager to change the subject from the previous one.

"What's _that?_" Vanellope asked incredulously.

"A card game. So, we can scratch that off our list. How about…Crazy eights, Go fish, Speed, Garbage..." Taffyta began to list them off until Vanellope stopped her.

"Oh, oh! I know what garbage is!" Vanellope interrupted excitedly, grinning.

"It's not _that_ kind of garbage Vanellope." Taffyta explained with a roll of her eyes.

"Well, that's good I guess, cause I really don't see how we'd have a fun sleepover game involving it." Vanellope muttered dryly, a little disappointed that she did not, in fact, know what it was.

"I'm going to assume you don't know how to play card games. Instead, we could…uhh, what do Rancis and Swizz and Gloyd always do…oh, they blindfold each other and try to guess what they're eating. It sounds kinda.." Before Taffyta could state an opinion, Vanellope leapt up from her spot.

"Now that's the kind of game that doesn't need any explaining! Wanna play?" Taffyta couldn't very well say no, considering this seemed to be the first game that made sense to Vanellope.

'_Naturally, she'd like the boys sleepover stuff…'_ She thought, almost scolding herself for not having thought of it earlier.

"Yeah, sure. What do you want to use as the blindfold? And who's tasting first?" Taffyta agreed to the game, albeit reluctantly since she thought it was a bit gross depending on what the other person thought should be eaten. She didn't let it show in her voice or face though, that'd be rude. Besides, Vanellope was already sleeping on the floor.

"I'll taste first if it makes ya feel better. As for the blindfold…how about we use…Racing goggles, and we cover the transparent part with a rag or socks or something." Vanellope pulled her racing goggles out from her pocket, then located a scrap of material she used to make something earlier. She stuffed it into the goggles, and fidgeted with them for a little bit.

"So, you want to start now?" A thumbs up was given by Vanellope, who sat back down. Taffyta glanced around for something to start off with, it wouldn't be smart to break of chunks of the building or furniture, so she grabbed what appeared to be some sort of half-eaten candy off of the desktop. It sure looked weird though. Taffyta hadn't seen anything like it.

She handed it to Vanellope, who lifted the food to her mouth and took a bite of it.

"It's a cherry." She answered easily, handing it back to Taffyta. "Ralph likes to snack on those things, they're from Pac Man. They aren't candies, so that was a dead giveaway. And I was already eating it earlier."

Taffyta's jaw dropped, though Vanellope couldn't see it. "What? That wasn't a candy? How do you eat it then? Isn't it all gross and stuff?"

"I think it tastes good, but, I think that about most things…" Vanellope shrugged. "Got anything else?"

Taffyta put away the foreign food object, which she was certain she would not be trying any time soon, and began walking out of the room to find a different thing to try. "Hey, I'll be right back, I'm just going to go look for something more challenging." She said, and was soon out the door.

**(POV shift)**

Vanellope waited for a few moments until she heard the door close, before pulling her goggles up and looking around her room.

Her gaze soon fell to the cherry on the desk, it was leaking some of its red juice onto the surface. She grinned deviously as an idea came to her. Cherry juice was red enough to be used as fake blood.

'_Should I?'_ She thought, dropping her grin for a moment. '_Taffyta won't be happy….' _She frowned as she glanced at the cherry again.

"But it's so tempting…." She mumbled, walking up to it and snagging it off the desk.

Light glinted off its shiny red surface. Letting out a huff of resignation to the fact that she _shouldn't_ do it, she sat down back in her spot and took a bite out of the cherry, chewing in a bored manner.

'_I did the right thing!_' A part of her conscience told her merrily.

'_The right thing is so boooriiing….'_ The other part whined.

Grumbling, she continued to take chunks off the cherry, biting forcefully and fearing that she might not have the self-control to avoid going through with her prank after all if the cherry wasn't gone.

She finished eating it and tossed the pit to the side haphazardly, then wiped her mouth of the bright red juice with her hand, before brushing that off as well.

Where was Taffyta with the stuff for their game, anyways?

Vanellope pulled the goggles on again, and lay down on her back.

She chewed on her hoodie string in thought. '_You know, it sure would be nice if everything I found fun didn't just so happen to be a big no-no in the 'civilized' world.'_ She scoffed at her own thought.

"Pfft, like that'd happen." She rolled her eyes, though she couldn't see through the goggles. " I mean, I still can't shake some of my old habits….Talking to myself for the sake of hearing a friendly voice, for instance."

"I still have that tendency to flinch when I hear someone behind me…I still climb trees and have to take a second to remember that it wouldn't be smart to try and spit on the heads of people walking by…there's more, too, but, Taff could be back any second." Vanellope said aloud, pulling the goggles up again and glancing at the door.

As if the universe had read her mind, Vanellope soon heard Taffyta knock on the door. "Hey, make sure those goggles are on! I found something!"

"Great! Yeah, they're on!" Vanellope exclaimed, pulling the goggles on, obscuring her vision once more.

The door opened with a small creak, and footsteps came up to Vanellope's side.

"O-kay, uhh….I have the food in question, but it's sorta hard, so…" Taffyta trailed off.

"You're not trying to feed me Sour Bill, are ya?" Vanellope teased, moving her head forward a little until she bumped into an object.

She took it, and bit off a piece after a little bit of gnawing. Taff was right, whatever this stuff was, it was _really_ hard.

Vanellope went over a checklist in her head as she tasted it. '_Chocolate, mint, really hard…'_

"Peppermint bark?" She guessed, beginning to push her goggles up.

"Yeah. That's why it took so long to get. I had a bit of trouble breaking it off.." Taffyta explained sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head as so.

"Hey, do you want to play a different game?" Vanellope suggested, before adding: "Unless you still want a turn!"

"I'm good. So do you want to play truth or dare now? It's late enough. Most people are sleeping." Taffyta replied, pointing to the window. It was still daytime, as always, in their game, but you could tell it was late out because the sky was a bit darker. At the moment they were trying to figure out how to make a night time in the game, but so far that's all they had accomplished.

"Cool! So, uh, can you go first?" Vanellope motioned towards Taffyta hesitantly.

Taffyta nodded. "Just ask me truth or dare, I'll pick one, and you give me a dare or question."

"Got it. Truth or dare?" She asked, leaning in a bit.

"Truth."

Vanellope thought about it for a minute. "Hmm….What's the dumbest thing you've done that you can remember?"

Now Taffyta was thinking. "I'd say it was this one time, I took Candlehead to the ice-cream mountains with me and Beezle, long story short her candle set something on fire and caused an avalanche, I guess. One of the structures fell over, and her candle must've set fire to it's base when we went past it." She laughed at the memory.

Vanellope laughed too, a bit nervously. '_Should I tell her it was me that knocked that over? Nah, what she doesn't know can't hurt her…besides, I think that would ruin the question.'_ She thought to herself awkwardly.

"So, Vanellope, truth or dare?" Taffyta asked, causing Vanellope to snap back to attention.

Vanellope shrugged. "I guess truth since you picked it."

"What's the worst thing you've ever thought?"

Vanellope blinked at the question, and, without hesitation, said, "Dare."

Taffyta raised an eyebrow at this. "Fine, then…I dare you to answer that question." She smirked.

Vanellope cringed, and began to sort through memories. She could think of a few.

'_I'm gonna treat her just like she treats me. No, no, worse. Like, if I saw her dying on the street, I'd just sit there and laugh my head off.'_ She flinched at the recollection, and tried to find a different one.

'_Why do they keep trying to catch me again? I respawn when they 'do the deed'…'_ Her gut twisted and she banished the memory to the farthest reaches of her mind. She wished she could erase it, and all of the memories of what caused her to think that. She glitched at the next few memories, fizzling in and out of code as she failed to keep her grasp on what was going on outside of her thoughts.

'_I wish I could knock the racers and the king and everyone into the hot cola, like I do with the Mentos…. _

_I just want to strangle that overconfident…_

_Someday, I'll get them back, all of them…_

_I could execute every single one of them, easy as pie.…'_ She jolted out of her reverie when Taffyta shook her shoulder. "Prez? Earth to Vanellope? You were bugging out. Literally and figuratively.."

Vanellope shook her head and tried to shake it off. "I-I'm fine. I guess the worst thing I've ever thought was 'what would Ralph's morning breath smell like?'. I think it'd be pretty bad, considering how he reeks even on a good day." She laughed, and tried to get off the subject. "Your turn...truth or dare?"

"Dare." She replied.

"I dare you to lick the floor." Vanellope grinned, and pointed to the floor by her bed.

"Ewwww…" Taffyta whined. "I don't want to lick that…."

"But, you said that if you got dared to do something you had to do it…or else you're chicken. Are you chickening out?" Vanellope asked slyly, still pointing at the floor. "Cause unless you are…the floor is waiting."

"Fine, fine! I'm chicken. Congratulations, Vanellope, you won truth or dare." Taffyta said reluctantly, glancing at the spot on the floor.

"You know, the floor is candy too, I think…it's edible so why would you chicken out on licking it?" Vanellope asked her curiously, now gazing at the place she had pointed to.

"You don't know that." Taffyta pointed out uncertainly.

"Let's see then." Vanellope gazed at the floor. "Now, how to get a piece off of it…." She glanced over to her arm, then back at the floor, and lit up as an idea came to her.

"If I can pull this off…" She muttered to herself, glitching experimentally. She tried to get to the basement doing that and succeeded, then went back to her room.

"Okay, so what I'm thinking is, if I can pass through the floor using my glitch, maybe I can take a piece of the floor with me." She explained to the very confused Taffyta.

"So, you're trying to bust a hole in the floor." Taffyta summarized. "Is that really a good idea?"

Vanellope argued, "But then we can prove that it's candy."

Taffyta huffed and crossed her arms. "I'll lick the floor and prove it instead, just don't do that. You'd probably get stuck in the floor or something."

"Point taken." Vanellope admitted to the flaw in her plan, then pointed to the ground. "Lick the floor then."

Taffyta muttered something along the lines of "I can't believe I'm doing this…" and licked the floor.

"It's candy." She grumbled, then added "But you can bet it didn't taste good at all."

Vanellope laughed. "I shoulda put money on it, huh?"

Seeing Taffyta roll her eyes, Vanellope straightened up. "Alright, grumpy-pants, what do you say we go to bed? I'm bushed, and we have work tomorrow. Same roster as yesterday, unless someone drops out."

"Alright." Taffyta agreed, then glanced from the bed to the floor, and back. "Are you sure you want to sleep on the floor?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Now go to bed, 'cause I'm getting to sleep too." Vanellope adjusted the blankets on the floor and pulled some over her, wrapping herself into as small of a bundle as she could manage while she curled up.

She shut her eyes and tried to doze off.

**(POV shift)**

Taffyta reluctantly pulled the covers over herself after taking her jacket, helmet, and shoes off and setting them by the base of the bed, wondering in the back of her mind why Vanellope curled and bundled herself up the way she did.

She concluded it was just one more mystery that she might never know the answer to.

She figured she might as well just sleep while she could, since thinking about everything would only keep her up all night, and if the roster was the same as it was last time, she was still on it tomorrow.

Her thoughts trailed off as she began to get drowsy. Soon she fell asleep.

Some time later, she was awoken to a rustling noise at the side of the bed. Upon glancing down to investigate, she found Vanellope squirming in her blankets, in a cold sweat. She made small noises as she tossed and turned.

"Well, isn't this just great…" Taffyta mumbled dryly under hear breath.

She slowly approached the girl on the floor, poking her in an attempt to wake her up. "Hey, wakey-wakey. Get up. You're flipping out. Wake up."

Taffyta sighed and threw her arms into the air, deeming the entire waking up process a lost cause.

She turned around for a moment, just as Vanellope's eyes snapped open.

"Ack!" Vanellope tripped over the blankets around her as she made a mad scramble for the door. Halfway there, her brain apparently caught up with her, and she turned around, grinning sheepishly and glancing apologetically at Taffyta.

"Sorry, it, it took me a second to remember that…" She trailed off, averting her gaze awkwardly, before glancing up at Taffyta again. "It took me a minute to remember that we aren't, uh, in a disagreement, anymore." She finished weakly, crawling back to her blankets on the floor.

Taffyta sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I can see why you spent the first week at your friend's house…" She mumbled, taking a seat on the side of the bed but not getting back in it.

Vanellope nodded sheepishly. "No offense, but he's a lot less scary than you guys, to me anyways…" She trailed off awkwardly once again, while Taffyta facepalmed.

"You mean to say you find a nine foot tall, giant heap of muscles and intimidation less scary than a couple of kids?" Taffyta asked incredulously, raising her eyebrow at the statement.

'_Seriously?'_ She thought to herself. '_I don't understand this at all but, then again, like I've been saying, I have absolutely no understanding of how she works..'_

"Aw, he wouldn't hurt me, honestly. That's more than I coulda said about you lot." She snorted, glancing to the side.

Upon looking back and noticing the unreadable expression on Taffyta's face, she quickly apologized for her statement, some of the words punctuated by nervous glitching.

"I-I mean…I-i-it's not th-that….I-I don't st-st-i-ll….uh, y-you guys a-aren-n't, I-I w-wa-wasn't m-mad, o-or anything….ah, I-I'm r-r-ea-al-lly s-sorry…." She stammered, words falling to pieces as she glitched and the light flashed across the room.

"Oh, n-now I'm making l-li-ight…s-so-rr-y…." She mumbled, gazing down at her blankets in an attempt to remain solid. She lay down in an embarrassed manner and glanced back and forth from Taffyta, to the floor.

"Vanellope…" Taffyta whined, pulling the other girl up from the floor.

"Stop apologizing, seriously." She said irritably, though she wasn't really mad at Vanellope so much as the fact that she was acting the way she was.

"But I messed up the sleepover, I thought. Isn't that something you apologize for?" Vanellope asked hesitantly in reply, now regaining her solid composure.

"You're not messing anything up, the point of a sleepover is usually to stay up, and you haven't done anything wrong, because you can't really do things wrong in an event like this. How a sleepover goes depends completely on who's hosting and who's there, and all that stuff. If you wanted, you could've said that for our sleepover we were cleaning out your basement, it would still count." Taffyta corrected her with a mini-rant. "So tell me, why do you feel the need to apologize when you haven't done anything wrong?"

"Eheh, I don't know, really. I just want to make an okay impression, to be honest. To tell the truth I've been kinda worried that you wouldn't like me...even if I think we're friends by now." Vanellope laughed sheepishly, tucking hair behind her ear for the sake of something to do.

She did a double take when Taffyta laughed as well. "Hahah, I guess we were both worrying about nothing, then. I was worried about the same thing. I wasn't even sure we were friends."

"Really?" Vanellope asked skeptically, her face scrunched up. "What did you have to worry about? Of course we're friends. I mean, why else would we be having a sleepover? G'doi. I mean really, who invites someone they don't like to a sleepover?" She scoffed, as if the notion was ridiculous.

"So, we're friends now?" Taffyta confirmed.

"Yeah, I think so." Vanellope replied.

"Well the first thing I'm going to do is teach you how to play a card game, then." Taffyta giggled, and pulled a pack of cards out of her jacket. "I keep these on hand in case Candle ever gets bored."

"Well this ought to be interesting." Vanellope remarked cheerfully, as she got up to turn a light on in the room.

**(Breakline/transition)**

Taffyta spent well over an hour explaining what the cards were, and how to play go fish.

Each of them already had a hand, and they were a small ways into the game. Taffyta had nine cards in her hand, and Vanellope had eight.

Taffyta's hand had two threes, an eight, three queens, a four, a five, and a ten.

"Oh, I've seen you and some other racers play this one before! I guess I never put it into context, since I couldn't hear squat from where I was sitting." Vanellope laughed, then glanced at her cards. "Got any sevens?"

"Go fish." Taffyta replied, glancing at her cards as well, before deciding to make a comment on her new friend's earlier statement. "What do you mean 'you've seen us play before'?"

Vanellope drew her card and sighed, either at the number she got or at something else. "I already was talking to Candlehead about this, but, while you guys were all living your fun little lives, I was sorta just sitting around with nothing to do, so I liked to watch what you guys were doing, for fun, I guess. Any threes?"

Taffyta dropped the two threes she had in her hand and slid them over to Vanellope. Vanellope laid out all four threes on the ground near herself.

"So, you just watched us. That's actually kinda funny, considering we never noticed. Any fives?" Taffyta responded, still looking at her cards, though she looked up at Vanellope every now and then when they were speaking.

"Go fish. Oh, you guys looked right at me, a few times. I'm amazed you never ended up finding me." She snickered, looking from her hand of cards to Taffyta while the latter drew a card from the center pile.

It was a seven.

"I guess we were just a bit dense, huh? Sevens?" Taffyta asked, while Vanellope grumbled and dropped three sevens onto the floor from her hand.

"Of course you had to pull that seven _after_ I ask…." She muttered as Taffyta laid out the four sevens on the floor. Vanellope glanced back at her hand, she only had two cards left.

"Any queens? And yeah, you guys were sorta dense, but I guess everyone is, sometimes." Vanellope yawned, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. It was late at night.

"Darn." Taffyta scowled and dropped her three queens, giving them to Vanellope.

"Yes!" Vanellope exclaimed, fist pumping. She set out the queens before looking slowly at the one card she had left.

"Any ones?" She asked hopefully, before seeing Taffyta shake her head no.

"Go fish." Vanellope grabbed a card from the dwindling pile in the center and added it to her hand upon hearing this.

"So, what kind of stuff do you usually do on your spare time? Or at least, what was the normal thing before the world turned upside down?" Vanellope asked casually, before adding, "Any fives?" She asked with a smirk.

Taffyta responded as she surrendered her five to Vanellope. "Uh, I guess I mostly just kept Candle in check and made sure there weren't any huge fights among the racers at the time. I guess I did a pretty crappy job, considering Candle still did dumb things and technically all of us got into fights, just not with each other. But," She shrugged, "not much to do about it now. I'm going to go fish since you only have three cards and I know what they are."

Vanellope chewed on her hoodie string in silence, before speaking again. "…You know, I was talking to Candlehead the other day...yesterday, actually, and...I think she might be smarter than you give her credit for. Maybe not book-smart, or street-smart, but…She knows how to be happy, I guess. And that's something we still have a hard time doing, y' know?"

Taffyta glanced up at Vanellope in surprise. "Huh. I guess, I never thought about it that way. I guess she is pretty smart. Just, a bit of an airhead sometimes."

Vanellope grinned. "See, you talk to her the right way once and your whole viewpoint changes. Socializing is confusing like that, isn't it? I guess you'd know better than me, but.." Vanellope trailed off, staring at the window.

"Well, what is it?" Taffyta asked, now wanting to know what it was Vanellope was going to say.

Vanellope continued to stare at the window. "Look. It's morning already." She pointed.

"What?! What time is it?!" Taffyta exclaimed, dropping her hand of cards and rushing over to look out the window. Racers and citizens were walking around.

"Attention. The arcade will be opening in 30 minutes. Report to your games and prepare!" The announcement came, and Taffyta hurriedly got into her racing gear.

"I can't believe this keeps happening!" She ranted, pulling her jacket on and fixing her hair.

Vanellope was just pulling the rag out of her goggles.

"So, we overslept, staying up. Does that mean we over-stayed-up?" She asked Taffyta sarcastically, smirking and heading out the door.

"How are you ready already?" Taffyta complained, now slipping on her shoes.

"Easy, I fell asleep like this." She shouted down the hall. "Have fun being almost-late, Taff! And remember, no sleepy driving, unless you want to be woken up by a car crash and a face full of frosting!" She teased, just as Taffyta finished preparing and took off down the hall.

"Wait up!" She shouted, running to make her way down to the tracks as well. The castle was a little ways away, not to mention the fact that they were supposed to be there at least a few minutes before the arcade opened, in case Litwack arrived early.

Rancis was almost ran over, since he was standing at the castle door, about to knock, when the two rushed out. They slowed down until he started running alongside them. "There you two are! I was just about to go get you guys and make sure you weren't oversleeping, or something." He huffed, the three of them growing nearer to the starting line.

"Oh, don't worry about it. We got up in time, didn't we? We've been awake for hours, by now. We were just playing cards." Taffyta waved it off, catching her breath as she stopped running when she neared the roster starting lines and the karts.

"Okay, then. Good luck, you guys!" Rancis gave the both of them a thumbs up before heading to his kart, and Vanellope went to hers as well.

Taffyta got into her kart and prepared to wait. On the other side of the roster, Swizzle looked like he really wanted to ask her something, but she supposed it would have to wait until after closing time.

'_I guess that sleepover turned out better than I thought it would.'_ She thought happily, grinning at the sentence.

'_On a semi-related note, I hope I don't fall asleep at the wheel.'_ She rubbed sleep out of her eyes. Oh well, she guessed she'd just go to bed early after closing.

**AN: And this has been chapter five! Lots of Taffyta and Vanellope interaction here, because there isn't going to be much of it in the next chapter or two..**

**Here's the checklist: Rancis, Candlehead, and Taffyta.**

**Thanks for reading the story, I hope you enjoyed it! **


	6. Level 2: The Confrontation

**AN: So here's this overdue chapter. I realize that I took WAAAAAYYY too long to get this up, but, I've been sort of really busy in real life, I guess. Either way, I didn't stop doing fanfiction, I've just had less time. I'm sorry this took so long, but, it's here now, soo…yeah. **

Rancis wiped his hands off on his jacket after doing some minor checks on his kart. It was just after closing, and Taffyta was pretty much already asleep at the wheel.

Vanellope was also checking her kart, as were most of the others. The only ones he could see that weren't were Taffyta and Swizzle.

Uh oh.

Swizzle was making his way over to the sleepy Taffyta, who was on her way to Jubileena's house, he was pretty sure.

Rancis strained to listen to what Swizzle was about to say. He didn't want repeats of yesterday. "…So how'd it go with the president yesterday?"

'_And here we go…'_ He groaned inwardly, looking up and hoping that Swizzle at least had the sense to not make a big scene.

Taffyta yawned. "It was fun, we stayed up kinda late and I'm tired, but, she's pretty cool to hang out with. I don't see why I was worried earlier." She thought for a second and turned to face Swizzle more directly. "She doesn't really know much about sleepovers or games or even some things that seem like common sense, but I think she'll catch on pretty quick. I liked hanging out with her. But, right about now, I'd like even more to get some sleep…." Taffyta added as an afterthought.

"Goodnight…" She yawned, and headed off for Juby's house again.

'_Yes! I knew Taff would be friends with her! I gotta go tell her 'I told you so' when I get the chance__.__'_ Rancis thought excitedly, fist pumping for a moment before noticing that Swizzle was now headed directly for Vanellope.

"Not good, not good…" He repeated to himself under his breath as he tried to get there before Swizzle could.

"Hey, Vanellope!" Too late. Swizzle shouted for Vanellope's attention, which she gave, looking up and turning to face Swizzle from where she was standing.

"What's up, Swizzle?" She asked curiously, oblivious to the fact that it wasn't a friendly shout out from him.

"I'm calling you out, that's what! I don't trust you, and I think you did something to Rancis and Taff to make them like you." Swizzle glared, and Rancis facepalmed , and Vanellope just looked confused.

'_Is that….is it just me, or does she look like she's about to smile?'_ Rancis squinted at Vanellope in confusion after moving his hand, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him. Getting called out in front of all of her subjects wasn't really something to _smile _about, was it?

"Hey, what are we doing now?" Candlehead came up behind Swizzle, peeking over his shoulder to see what the fuss was all about. "Oh, hi Vanellope! I bet you had a fun sleepover right?"

"Candle, you agree with me, right?" Swizzle asked confidently, turning to face the birthday-cupcake themed racer.

Candlehead tilted her head in confusion. "Umm…what?"

"Do you trust the president, I mean?" Swizzle asked urgently, now noticing that a crowd was drawing.

"Of course!" Candlehead chimed happily, then glanced up at her candle. "Do you guys think that the fire I set off over there will spread?" Minty grabbed Candlehead by the wrist and pulled her over to wherever she had set the fire, to go put it out. They left unnoticed by everyone else, the others were all watching intently to see how the situation panned out.

The suspicious ones rooted for Swizzle, the few that trusted Vanellope rooted for her, and the fence-sitters just watched for anything to help them make up their mind.

Swizzle huffed irritably and turned back to face Vanellope, who was simply raising an eyebrow at the turn of events.

"Well, this is turning out well for you, isn't it?" She commented sarcastically, setting a hand on her hip and allowing her racing goggles to dangle from the other. She still retained that almost-smile, a daunting reminder that she had the upper hand over Swizzle.

Swizzle gulped, before gathering his bravado up again. Rancis was now questioning how she was managing to get the most foolhardy racer in the game to have to stop and think about whether he should go on or not.

"I still don't trust you." Swizzle growled at her, crossing his arms.

"And I never said you had to." She shrugged, relaxed as ever. "If you don't trust me, that's your opinion, but right now I've got to be somewhere, since I promised I would show today."

Swizzle gaped at being brushed off just like that. Rancis was about to laugh.

"Wait, so, you aren't even going to try and prove me wrong?!" Swizzle exclaimed, half-challenging and half-asking. He looked frantic for an argument, and he was losing his cool.

"I don't need to. Nobody's backing you up. Face it, if you can't give one good case, this isn't worth everyone's time. Give me one example, one example of a time I've given you a reason not to trust me since I became the president, and maybe _then_ I'll prove you wrong." She said, almost mockingly calm, before turning around and beginning to walk towards the exit. "But hey, no need to worry about it. After all, if you dislike me so much, surely you'll be able to give tons of evidence, right here and right now, with people who completely agree with you?" She added with a smirk, turning around once again.

Swizzle just gaped once again, unable to find evidence.

"Huh, well lookie here, all talk and nothing to back it up. I'd say it's surprising, but it really isn't, soo… I'm outta here." Vanellope slipped her goggles into her pocket, and walked off, leaving Swizzle to wonder what just happened, along with the other racers, and giving Rancis time to catch up to Vanellope while they all stood around.

"How'd you even handle him like that?" Rancis asked, glancing back at the still-gaping Swizzle. "Even I couldn't get him to shut up that quickly earlier, and I've known him for his, and my, whole life."

"I didn't realize it was such a feat." Vanellope scoffed sarcastically, looking back at Swizzle for a moment and rolling her eyes disdainfully.

"That guy is just one more person who's got it out for me. I don't care if he tells me what he thinks, because he doesn't think. Ever. If everyone says the same thing, it loses it's meaning, like saying a word over and over again." She continued, staring directly ahead of herself.

She turned to face Rancis curiously. "Has he tried that before? You said couldn't and earlier."

"We had a similar conversation, yesterday. I thought he'd drop it after I nailed him in the face with a dodge ball, but, I guess not…" He trailed off sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing to the side.

"You decked him in the face with a dodge ball?" She repeated, grinning ear to ear.

"Only a little.." He looked up to the side and pretended to be innocent.

"High five!" She laughed, holding her hand out. He smiled and high-fived.

"You know, we only have four fingers.." He commented afterwards, and she stuck her tongue out in response. "Well that's still what it's called." She argued.

He rolled his eyes and looked over to the exit, which they were walking towards. "So, where are you going?"

"Ralph's place. I didn't go see him after closing yesterday, poor guy almost knocked my door down." She snickered, suppressing giggles. "You'd think that a big, tough guy like him wouldn't be so worried about me, but I guess we can all be proved wrong, huh?"

"Yeah." Rancis agreed, before asking one more question. "But, really, how _did_ you manage to handle Swizz like that? You didn't even look angry. You made it look like he barely had your attention, and left him gaping in a matter of minutes."

"Well, there's a certain way to handle everything. I had to get him to stop talking, but at the same time I didn't want to look completely defensive or react as if he'd committed treason, or something dumb like that. If I acted upset, the other racers would think I'm running a strict government, but in reality, I don't actually do anything other than check up on the code room with Felix now and then, since apparently it's my job to know all that stuff." Vanellope admitted, before continuing, "Honestly, I just want to be friends without all of this constant drama and fighting." She explained, before motioning over to the crowd of racers over by the tracks.

"Maybe we won't all hang out, but for as long as people are still arguing over whether or not I'm 'the president' or 'the glitch', the game will be a mess. We at least need to fix that, it could mess up other friendships, you know? I really _do_ want to be friends with everyone. It just sounds like it would be nice, being on good terms with everyone in my game, being able to talk after the races, or before them. And I think it would give everybody some peace, if most of you feel the way Taffyta did." Vanellope finished, before turning to Rancis. "That's probably the best I can put it into words, anyways. I should get going to go see Ralph now. See you later!"

Rancis thought for a moment. He had a plan, about what to do about the other racers. '_Maybe…I could look for some of those fence sitters and ask them….'_ He thought to himself. He hadn't quite registered that she had said goodbye.

"I think I have an idea of something I could do, actually. I mean, about the other racers." Rancis mused, before snapping his fingers. "Yeah, it'll work!"

"Err, alright…." Vanellope trailed off. "Like I said earlier, see you later." She turned and headed for the exit.

"See you later!" Rancis waved after her, before rushing back down towards Swizzle and the others, who were still standing around. Minty and Candlehead had returned.

Swizzle turned around to face him with a bitter expression. "I _will_ prove it, just watch." He grumbled, before hopping into his kart and driving off in a hurry.

Rancis rolled his eyes and looked at the remaining racers.

"…So, just for the sake of knowing, I have to ask….does anyone here share Swizzle's opinion?" He spoke up after a moment's silence. "A show of hands, maybe?"

Jubileena, Sticky, Crumbelina, Torvald, Nougetsia, and Citrusella first raised their hands, and then, reluctant-looking, the cops did as well.

'_That's more than I thought there would be…'_ Rancis thought, almost ashamed that he'd been off the mark with the number he'd guessed there would be.

"And, how many of you can't decide?" He asked, looking at the rest of them.

Minty, Snowanna, and Adorabeezle raised their hands. "I'd love to say I knew exactly what side to be on here …on one hand, most of these rumors going around are ridiculous to say the least, and others have already been proven wrong….but on the other hand, we don't really know anything about her, so they could just as well be true." Minty said with a shrug, and the other two nodded.

Candlehead still hadn't raised her hand, but at that point it was a bit obvious what opinion she had. Gloyd was just muttering something under his breath about Swizzle.

"Would you be willing to, you know, give her a chance?" Rancis prodded, trying to move the conversation along to a point he would find useful information.

"It's only fair." Adorabeezle reasoned, weighing the options. "It'd be mean not to."

"Well then why are we still sitting here talking about it?" Snowanna interrupted, getting her friends' attention. "No excuses, let's all see if we can talk to her sometime this week. We've been fussing about it too long anyways."

"Can't argue with that." Minty shrugged, while Rancis watched the three wander off towards the town square.

'_Did they forget I was here, or…?'_ He thought, mildly confused at whatever had just gone down.

"Thanks for the idea, Fluggerbutter!" Adorabeezle shouted back to him at the last minute.

"Well, that answers that question." He mumbled aloud, before shrugging and heading towards his house to relax a bit.

"Hey, what about us?!" Crumbelina shouted after him, bringing his attention to the others.

He shrugged once more. "I don't know, that's your business. I asked for a show of hands, not your schedule." And with that, he continued towards his house.

**(POV shift)**

Candlehead giggled and waved bye to Rancis. Gloyd was still standing around, so she decided to ask him what he was doing.

"Me? I guess the same old stuff I'm always doing. Pranks and tricks. Maybe I'll sneak in a little time to pull an extra special prank on some unlucky person." He shrugged, and started off towards his house. Candle just followed him.

"Do you think we could hang out with Rancis today? Taff's busy sleeping, but the three of us could have fun still, right?" She suggested.

"Sure, I guess. Let's go see what he's up to though. He might be busy." Gloyd replied, and started to lead the two over to the direction Rancis had gone off to.

"Hey, you got time for us?" He greeted lazily as the two came up behind Rancis.

"Hi again!" Candlehead chirruped, as if she hadn't just seen him less than three minutes ago.

"Hey guys. I was just headed back home for something, do you want to tag along? Maybe we can go get a root beer or something after. My treat." Rancis offered, and pointed with a thumb towards his house.

"Sounds like a plan." Gloyd laughed before adding, "Especially because you're paying."

Rancis rolled his eyes. "Figures that that's the part that gets you on board with the plan."

"What are you getting from your house?" Candlehead inquired, making her way back into the conversation.

"Hmm? I was going to grab a ball." He replied as they came up to his house. "Now I'm just going to grab some coins for the root beers. Are we going to Tappers or somewhere else?"

"Haven't been there before, so why not?"

"Sure!"

"I guess it's agreed then. Let's go." Rancis grabbed a few coins off his table inside and the three walked up to the GCS.

**(Breakline/transition)**

"Wow Rancis, you weren't kidding when you said this root beer was the best!"

The three kids were sitting at a table, standing on the chairs to see over them and to reach their root beer easily.

"I know, right?" Rancis grinned and took another sip of his.

"Hey, talk about coincidences. Isn't that Vanellope's friend over there? Ralph?" Gloyd pointed out, motioning across the room to the wrecker.

"Oh, yeah, it is! Hi mister Ralph!" Candlehead called across the room, waving.

Ralph looked up from his drink over to the group of kids.

"Candle…." Rancis groaned, as Ralph stood up from his table.

"Get over it, sissy-boy." Gloyd snickered, and hopped down from his chair to greet the large man with Candlehead.

Rancis nodded meekly and followed, staying behind the other two racers.

"Uh, hi. Did you need something, or..?" Ralph trailed off awkwardly as Candlehead shook her head.

"I just wanted to say hi! And thanks for everything!" She told him enthusiastically, not noticing how Rancis was shrinking back and Gloyd was starting to look embarrassed by her.

"I mean, you fixed the whole game, mister Ralph! That's really cool, and you also sorta indirectly had us meet Vanellope, and-" Gloyd stepped in to cut her off.

"What she means to say is thanks for bothering to fix our game. I know it happened a few weeks ago, but she's trying to give you a proper thank you, right Candlehead?"

Candlehead nodded vigorously. "Yeah! Thank you!"

"Umm…no problem, I guess? You two sure are outgoing." Ralph remarked, glancing down at the two racers in front of the suddenly-shy Rancis.

"I get told that a lot!" Candlehead giggled, and suddenly became interested in playing with her hair and got distracted.

"Errr….I'm just going to go ahead and get back to my table."

"Candlehead," Gloyd sighed once Ralph had left, "You really need to have better timing with that kind of stuff."

"I thought that was great timing!" She protested, as they all got back to their root beers. "I mean, we were both _here,_ right?"

"Good point. Besides, I think we have more things to worry about with the wimp over here. Rancis, what was _that_ all about?" Gloyd changed the subject to Rancis, who was nervously downing the rest of his drink.

"What was what all about?" Rancis laughed nervously.

Gloyd deadpanned. "Dude. You're scared of him, aren't you?"

"What? No." Rancis looked away, pretending to be offended as he finished off his root beer.

"Crud…" He muttered, before putting his glass back on the table.

"You're so scared of him, your expression just proves it. What's the big deal?" Gloyd snickered, laughing at his flustered friend. "You worried he's going to step on you or something?"

"No, it's just…gah, I don't know, he just scares me." Rancis whined, as Gloyd rolled his eyes.

"Better get used to it, wuss. He's going to be around a lot, especially if you're still going full force with the whole aftermath cleanup whatever thing with the president. Once he's done helping out in his game, those two are going to be practically glued to each other's sides, I'm calling it." Gloyd informed Rancis, who looked like he wanted to sink into the floor.

"Guys, I think that this was supposed to be fun! We came here for root beer, not arguing! And besides, it isn't really a problem." Candlehead tried to reason with them, motioning to her root beer.

"It's not a problem for you, Candle. You like everybody. I'm pretty sure you don't know _how_ to be intimidated." Rancis argued.

"I do too! It's about ignoring that, though. I'm good at it." She replied, before sliding her half-empty root beer over to Rancis. "You can have the rest, if you'll cheer up."

"Thanks, Candle." He dropped the issue, and Gloyd seemed to do so as well.

"Hey, you guys. Don't you think it's weird how Ralph is here but Vanellope's not? Didn't she go to visit him earlier?" Gloyd asked, glancing back over at Ralph's table as if to double check.

"She's probably talking to someone else, she's also friends with the soldier lady and the guy who wears all the blue." Rancis shrugged.

"You mean Sergeant Calhoun and Felix?" Gloyd replied curiously.

"How'd you know their names?" Candlehead interrupted the boys' conversation.

"Well, Felix has a name tag, and he's standing over there. As for the other name, I've heard soldiers whining about her training since we got here." Gloyd motioned over to Felix, who had taken a seat next to Ralph, and then over to a group of Hero's Duty soldiers nursing bruises and muttering under their breath.

"Oh."

"Whatever, I guess that means that Felix is out, regardless, so she's hanging out with Calhoun. Who still scares me. But, she's married to him, isn't she? So where is she at?" Gloyd asked again, scanning Tappers for the tall blonde.

"Actually, they aren't married yet, Gloyd. They're dating." Rancis corrected the orange-clad boy.

"Isn't that the same thing? Both of them involve him being her husband, right?" He argued.

"No, right now he's her boyfriend."

"Oh. Well, whatever. We've determined that she isn't here and neither is the prez, but their other friends are, so that's that. We're all done with our root beer, so let's just scat before Calhoun shows up and beats the snot out of me." Gloyd hurriedly finished off his drink, eager to get out of the game.

"Sheesh, you're so nervous." Rancis laughed. "You're still afraid she's going to get revenge on you for that prank?"

"Actually, yeah, I am. So can we just leave before-"

"Going somewhere, Orangeboar?"

All three looked up to see the soldier glancing down at the mentioned.

"Heh, yeah, I have, a-a thing, so I'll just be going, r-right about n-now…." Gloyd stammered, before rushing out of Tappers at full speed.

Calhoun laughed and sat down in his seat. "Works every time."

"Hi!" Candlehead greeted cheerfully, waving to Calhoun. "How'd you know he was so scared of you?"

"Not much of a mystery, there." Calhoun rolled her eyes. "Anyways, I'm glad to see you took some initiative with the whole ordeal after I gave you that little nudge."

"No offense, but that was a shove. We really couldn't put it off any longer after that talk…" Rancis said nervously, looking off to the side sheepishly.

"Same thing." Calhoun shrugged, looking over her shoulder to check on Felix.

"Hey, so, if Vanellope's not with you, or with Felix and Ralph…where'd she go?" Rancis asked curiously, wondering if she was perhaps hanging out with the other bad guys he'd met earlier.

"What? She's here. I saw her with Wreck-it earlier. Why wouldn't she be here?" Calhoun replied motioning Felix over to them.

"Yes, Tammy? Do you need something?" He asked amiably as he came over to them, twirling his hammer.

"Isn't the cavity with you two?"

"Huh? No, Vanellope told Ralph and I that she was going to hang out with you, dear." Felix informed her putting his hammer back in its belt when he saw it wouldn't be needed.

"Well isn't this a pretty pickle…." Calhoun muttered, standing up from the seat she'd taken.

"Is there a problem? You don't think..?" Felix trailed off as Calhoun pulled out a radio.

"Markowski. Has anyone entered the game since I left?"

"You left?!"

"You were sleeping off a hangover again, weren't you? I oughta skin your sorry hide when I get back there…." Calhoun growled into the radio, before promptly turning it off.

"Fix it, wreck it! We've got a kid to find, move out!"

Felix quickly saluted his girlfriend and stood behind her, as Ralph ambled over from the other side of the bar.

"What, she's not with you?" He asked, brows furrowed. "Wouldn't that mean she went off to your game….without….." He trailed off before cursing loudly and rushing out the door.

Shouting from another part of Tappers was soon heard. "I was using the bathroom, nimrod! Get back here!" Vanellope rushed through the bar after him.

Tappers was silent for a while, before someone ordered a drink as if it wasn't weird.

"Does that….happen a lot?" Rancis asked awkwardly, as Calhoun just facepalmed and radioed in for her guards to stop Ralph and tell him the new intel.

"Not really," Felix started in explanation. "But there are a few…mix-ups, like this." He said sheepishly. "I probably should have noticed that she went to the wrong side of Tappers to be leaving."

"It doesn't matter anymore, regardless. Anyways, I was thinking when this is resolved, we could head over to your apartment…." Calhoun and Felix exchanged glances, and Felix blushed.

"That sounds wonderful, Tammy. We should go help out so it's done sooner." Felix suggested, starting towards the door. Calhoun followed and began talking about what they should do with the rest of their evening.

Which left Candlehead and Rancis in Tappers.

"Did that just happen?" Rancis asked after a moment.

"Yeah, it happened." Candlehead replied bluntly, before stifling a laugh.

"I just realized…" She giggled, "That they forgot to pay for their drinks."

Still stifling laughter, Candlehead moved over towards Ralph and Felix's seats and left some coins.

"I can't believe they all forgot." Rancis laughed, before pausing to think. "Hey, where do you think Gloyd got off too?"

"I don't know. Home?" Candlehead suggested with a shrug.

"I guess. Speaking of which, it's getting late. We should probably go home too." Rancis decided, and started towards the door. Candlehead laughed at him and stayed put.

"What's so fun- oh. I forgot to….." He sheepishly walked back in to Tappers and paid for the root beers. "Sorry! How'd you end up remembering this stuff, anyways?"

"Taffyta always forgets to do stuff when she's in a rush, so I'll usually have to remind her. It's sorta a habit I have now to remind people of stuff like this!" She explained cheerfully. "If I remember, anyways…"

"Huh. I didn't know that." Rancis replied, as they started back towards Sugar Rush. "I guess you learn something new every day."

"Yeah, I guess so."

**AN: I have this headcannon thing and Candlehead is like that one person in the group of friends that reminds everybody else who's in too much of a rush to notice that they're forgetting other things. It may seem a bit out of character but I thought it would be cute or funny to include. Thank you for reading!**


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